<y4r; ESSENTIALS 




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CjQKfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE ESSENTIALS 
OF CHRISTIANITY 



THE ESSENTIALS 
OF CHRISTIANITY 



By 
CRAIG S. THOMS, Ph. D. 

Professor of Sociology in the University 
of South Dakota 

Author of 

The Bible Message for Modern Manhood" 
" The Workingman's Christ," etc. 



PHILADELPHIA 

THE JUDSON PRESS 



BOSTON 


CHICAGO 


ST. LOUIS 


NEW YORK 


LOS ANGELES 


KANSAS CITY 


SEATILE 




TORONTO 







Copyright, 1919, by 
GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary 



Published December, 1919 



lite 29 1919 



©CI.A559189 



TO 

WHOSE CHRISTIANITY MUST BE SIMPLE 
SPIRITUAL AND BROTHERLY 



PREFACE 



Our day calls for what is practical in edu- 
cation, efficient in industry, and workable 
in political and economic relations. In these 
spheres we are rightfully impatient of beat- 
ing the air, intolerant of waste and loss 
of power, and insistent upon modern ma- 
chinery and new methods. Organization 
is our watchword, and we want every man 
at his post. 

Religion, like everything else, has caught 
the temper of the age. Its leaders are im- 
bued with the same spirit as educators, and 
feel the thrill of business efficiency. They 
think in vital terms; they discern the need 
of new view-points; they speak in modern 
language; they know the power of organ- 
ization; they want every religious man on 
the job ; they are aware that all our boasted 
modern science and invention, which are 
lightening the burdens of work, filling the 
world with comforts, and providing un- 
heard-of leisure^ may do more harm than 



good unless men are made better. The 
world needs better men, and men every- 
where need to lay hold upon those forces 
which enable them to become better. 

These facts have been accentuated by 
the world war. Recently the church has 
been criticized for a sort of fatalistic re- 
maining in old ruts while the world was 
rapidly changing. During the war the 
Young Men's and Young Women's Chris- 
tian Associations, and other religious 
bodies, working at home and abroad, gave 
a tensely practical turn to religion. The 
millions of virile young men in canton- 
ments and trenches who were religiously in- 
clined, thought of religion in vital terms. 
They were eager for reality. They sought 
a workable and working religion. 

Today some are growing negligent of re- 
ligion and becoming indifferent to its 
claims. They seem unable to make those 
readjustments in thought and attitude which 
the times demand. They rebel against old 
theology without getting for themselves a 
new and better theology. They have not 
outgrown the notion obtaining a genera- 
tion ago that science and the Bible were 
in conflict. They are impatient with the 



ptetace 

church, failing to understand that institu- 
tions always move more slowly than in- 
dividuals, and that the permanence and use- 
fulness of all institutions are conditioned 
upon adjustments made by forward-looking 
people who feel the need of readjustments. 
Modern knowledge of science seems to have 
removed God from their world because they 
still think of God in outgrown terms. 
Christ fails to be dynamic in their lives be- 
cause they cannot appropriate him by the 
theology of other days. 

To discard what is outgrown is only 
half of the modern man's task; the other 
half is to take on and live in the new, and 
to be made of worth and service by the 
new. When some can no longer accept 
old terms and theologies they throw away 
their religion and become idlers in the 
moral and spiritual spheres. Let the mod- 
ern man, if he feels the need, choose his 
own terms and make his own theology, but 
let him not be an idler in living the in- 
spirational life and in helping those about 
him to a grip on God. Let him deal with 
vital and essential things in religion and 
leave other things of more remote conse- 
quence for time to adjust. 



ptetace 

This volume is sent forth with the hope 
that it may help men over difficulties which 
hold them back from Qiristian activity and 
enable them to enlist all their powers in the 
one task which alone can supply the world's 
greatest need — the building of better men. 

Craig S. Thoms. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Pagi 

I. Faith i 

II. God 25 

III. Christ 47 

IV. Evolution 73 

V. The Bible 95 

VI. Prayer 123 

VII. Immortality 147 

VIII. The Church 193 

IX. Cooperating with God 231 



1 

faltb 



FAITH 



IN order to understand the full signifi- 
cance of faith and appreciate its power 
in religion we must first of all tear the 
word loose from its theological definitions 
and applications and see it operative in the 
whole of life. 

Faith is usually regarded as a religious 
term, and the word is most frequently em- 
ployed in that connection. In other spheres 
of life, such as home, school, or business, 
we are more accustomed to the words " be- 
lief, confidence, trust," and other like terms. 
And yet we say : " I have faith in myself," 
meaning confidence ; " I have faith in my 
friends," meaning trust. 

Without hair-splitting definitions, then, 
let it be noted how large and powerful a 
factor in all spheres of life is that set of the 
soul which is characterized by faith, con- 
fidence, and trust as contrasted with that at- 
titude of mind which is ever insisting upon 
proof. 



[3] 



Zbc J£BBcnUn\B of Cbridtianiti^ 

The Fundamental Character of Faith 

Faith underlies all our knowing proc- 
esses. For example, we arrive at some con- 
clusion ; another insists that we are wrong ; 
but we believe that we are right. That is, 
we trust the processes of our own minds. 
Faith in the integrity of our rational proc- 
esses is the foundation upon which the whole 
superstructure of knowledge rests. One 
cannot even prove himself sane to another 
who challenges his sanity. He may plead 
that he is like most other people, but the 
challenger may insist that all are insane 
but himself. One simply believes in and 
trusts his own sanity. Upon this basis of 
faith in the integrity of one's own mental 
operations all knowledge is built. 

Our constantly besetting temptation is to 
seek proof of things, and were this not the 
case it would be difficult to see how our 
reasoning faculty could be exercised and 
developed. This is its means of growth. 
But the facts of evolution teach that reason 
is our baby faculty — the latest born of them 
all. This baby, reason, will grow to man- 
hood in time, and will doubtless do valiantly 
when grown; but as yet he is not fully 

[4] 



jfaitb 

capable of holding the reins of life. Daily 
life is guided more by faith than by reason. 

Underlying all education is faith in one's 
unfolding powers. The athlete believes that 
he can run faster and jump higher tomor- 
row than he did today. The football squad 
believe that they can win this year from the 
team to which they lost last year. By faith 
the student passes from less difficult to more 
difficult studies. He believes that he can 
master untried problems, though there is no 
possible proof of it beforehand. The grad- 
uate goes forth to his chosen work — teach- 
ing, engineering, law, medicine, or what- 
ever it may be — believing in his ability to 
succeed. It is a veritable plunge of faith. 
He does not and cannot know beforehand 
that success awaits him. The person full of 
faith succeeds where the one who lacks 
faith fails. 

The driving power in all wars and in all 
business is faith. No nation goes to war 
unless it believes that it can win. No farmer 
plows and sows who lacks faith in the com- 
ing of rain and in the conquest of insect 
pests. No manufacturing would be done 
in advance of demand but for faith in 
markets to take the product. All are aware 

[S] 



^be Bdsentiald ot Cbrietianiti^ 

that lack of faith in the business world 
produces panic. In a country like ours, 
where the bulk of business is done on credit, 
faith is one of the chief ingredients of busi- 
ness stability. No young man can prove 
that he will not die in the poorhouse, yet 
each of us proceeds joyfully with his work 
in faith that he will be able to acquire a 
competence for old age. 

Our homes are established in faith. 
What risks we run in marriage! Shall 
husband and wife be able to get along to- 
gether? If they waited for demonstration 
of this fact they would never marry. Shall 
the husband succeed in business and be able 
to provide a home ? Shall children turn out 
well? Shall life be spared to old age and 
happiness strew the long pathway? None 
can tell. We believe the best, and we pro- 
ceed joyfully by faith. 

Every great enterprise is born, not of 
knowledge, but of faith. " Find Living- 
stone.'* Stanley believed that he could find 
him, and he did. " Find the North Pole." 
Peary believed that he could do it, and he 
succeeded. " Go disciple all nations." The 
disciples believed that it could be done, and 
it is being done. Do we know that the 

[6] 



jfaitb 

League of Nations will succeed? It can- 
not be known beforehand. We believe it 
will succeed. Without that faith it never 
would be tried. 

All scientific knowledge proceeds upon 
the basis of faith. From his look at the 
swaying chandelier in the cathedral at Pisa, 
Galileo believed in the law of the pendu- 
lum and proceeded to prove it. By seeing 
the apple fall, Newton believed in the law 
of gravitation and demonstrated it mathe- 
matically. Darwin and Wallace believed in 
the evolution of species and spent years 
gathering facts to prove it. Franklin be- 
lieved that electricity could be made to do 
work, and he proceeded to snatch lightning 
from the clouds. Fulton believed that 
steam could be made to drive ships, and the 
oceans are now the highways of the na- 
tions. In every laboratory of investiga- 
tion men are working toward things that 
they believe in but cannot prove as yet. If 
faith were destroyed, effort would be para- 
lyzed, and work would cease. 

Inventions are the product of faith. 
Cyrus McCormick believed that he could 
make a machine to cut and bind grain. By 
his neighbors he was called lazy, a fool, 

[7] 



^be £06entia[0 of Cbci^tianit^ 

and even crazy. His faith saved him. 
" Darius Green with his flying-machine " 
v^as the joke of the author's country-school 
days. But from generations of men with 
faith that they could fly, a new and terrible 
weapon was added to the world war, and a 
new and important method is being added to 
the world's transportation system. 

Every great forward step in government 
is prompted by faith. Without the faith of 
our Pilgrim Fathers the Mayflower would 
have been unknown to history, the charac- 
ter of this nation would have been very dif- 
ferent, and the democratic purposes of the 
Allies in the world war impossible. 

When in the crisis of Colonial history 
Benjamin Franklin said, " We must all hang 
together or we shall all hang separately," 
he expressed a phase of the venture of faith 
which gave our nation birth. 

What fight in life is not a struggle of 
faith? The young writer receives back 
from the critical editor manuscript after 
manuscript, but maintains faith in the suc- 
cess of his next endeavor. A noble man 
begins a fight to clean up one of the worst 
wards in Chicago, believing after every de- 
feat that it can be done next time, and 

[8] 



jfaltb 

finally it is done, or done in large measure. 
Faith did it. 

Faith blazes the trail of the future. Co- 
lumbus, with faith as his chief asset, sailed 
forward to a new continent, and refused to 
turn back. The builders of our trans- 
continental railroads believed in the de- 
velopment of our Middle West. By faith 
they looked forward to the time to which 
we have now come, when towns, like neck- 
laces, would lie upon the bosom of the 
prairie, and homes nestle among trees on 
every hillside and in every valley. On these 
prairies the early settlers had no idea of 
living alone. They believed that they were 
the first of a gathering company, and but 
for this faith they would not have left their 
old homes. 

The following facts about faith then are 
evident : 

1. Faith is the engine of life and drives 
life forward when certain knowledge is im- 
possible. 

2. Faith is the pioneering faculty of the 
soul, and attempts and exploits all pos- 
sibilities. 

3. Faith runs risks and blazes the way 
into the larger unknown. 

[9] 



TTbe £d0entiald of Cbtidtianitis 

4. Faith seizes and utilizes opportunities 
which would be lost if we waited for cer- 
tain knowledge. 

5. Faith is a necessary and dominant 
power in every field of life. 

Faith as Individual Relationship 

Faith is the condition of assimilating the 
best or the worst in others. 

Let a youth believe in the life ideals of 
the "fast young man," and he fairly ab- 
sorbs him. He admires his manner and 
dress ; he listens eagerly to accounts of his 
exploits ; his judgment is molded by his 
ideas of morals ; he imitates him and grows 
to be like him. Let a youth, on the con- 
trary, lionize a person of opposite character, 
and he himself becomes opposite in char- 
acter. He who admires the industrious 
man, praises the temperate man, loves the 
pure man, trusts the just man, and asso- 
ciates with the religious man, will himself 
take on these qualities. Faith assimilates 
its object. It is the fountain from which 
flow admiration, praise, love, trust. It is 
the condition of agreeable association. 

Though a minister preach ever so good 

[10] 



^aitb 

a sermon, only those who have faith in his 
character are stirred by it. Though a poh- 
tician plead ever so eloquently for national 
reform, those who distrust his sincerity are 
not moved to action. On the contrary, 
when a speaker whom you trust is stirred 
with his theme, you also are stirred ; you 
respond to him and are ready to act with 
him. Faith in him makes you absorb his 
ideas and also something of his passion and 
power. 

Such facts help us to understand Christ's 
emphasis on faith. It is the psychic bond 
which binds us to him; it is our means of 
assimilating his qualities of character; it is 
our faculty for rendering his ideas dynamic 
in us ; it is the drawing power which brings 
him and us into vital association, makes 
that association agreeable, and renders pos- 
sible admiration, love, and obedience; it is 
the channel through which his nature and 
ours flow together. 

It is not surprising, then, that Christ 
says, if I may paraphrase him somewhat 
freely : He that believeth on me, though he 
were spiritually dead, yet shall he become 
spiritually alive. He that believeth on the 
Son is awakened into spiritual life ; he that 

[II] 



^be ]E00cntial6 ot Cbristianltig 

believeth not the Son cannot find spiritual 
life. (See John 3 : i6; 5 : 24; 6 : 47; ii : 
25, 26.) If you have faith as a grain of 
mustard-seed, things shall be possible to 
you which otherwise are impossible ; you 
shall have power which may be likened to 
plucking a mountain out of its place and 
casting it into the sea. (Matt. 21 : 21.) 

Faith is not a mystical thing for religious 
use only. It functions the same every- 
where between individuals. When exer- 
cised toward Christ, it joins us to Christ; 
Christ lives in us and we in him ; our char- 
acters become assimilated to his ; we lay 
hold upon his power, and he works through 
us. 

Faith is the leverage under all efforts to 
help men and improve society. In one of 
his lectures Dr. P. S. Henson used to tell 
that, while hastening to a train one day 
in Chicago, he slipped a package into a 
postal box without first putting stamps on 
it. He had no time to wait for the postman, 
so, calling a little ragged newsboy from 
across the street, he told him his predica- 
ment. '' Here are twenty-five stamps for 
the postage," he said, " and here is money 
to buy all your papers, and you may have 

[12] 



3faftb 

them to sell again. You stand here and 
wait for the postman, and have him put 
the stamps on the package." 
" Sure, I'll do it," said the lad. 
When Doctor Henson was a block away 
he looked back, and there the boy stood as 
though he owned the city, straight as a 
Northern pine. The package reached its 
destination safely, and every one of the 
twenty-five stamps was on it. By putting- 
faith in boys we make men out of them. 
None of us rise to our best unless we are 
trusted. 

Of this fact Christ's conduct is a lumi- 
nous example. He put faith in the un- 
worthy, and they were transformed as by 
a healing touch. He forgave the sinful and 
sent them away to sin no more, and they 
would have died for him. He trusted every 
one of the twelve disciples, and those who 
failed him were heart-broken. Peter de- 
nied him, but alone in the darkness he wept 
bitter tears of repentance. Judas betrayed 
him, but, unable to live with conscious be- 
trayal in his heart, he brought back the 
blood-money and went and hanged himself. 
Nothing brings out the good in one like 
being trusted, 

[13] 



Gibe iBescntiale ot Gbtidttanitis 

Only those who believe in their fellow 
men work for their betterment. Faith gives 
the push for work. We believe that we 
can keep the young from going wrong; we 
believe that we can get bad people to change 
their ways ; we believe that we can improve 
social and economic conditions ; we believe 
that international relations can be made 
more brotherly; we believe that Christ has 
power to uplift men and society ; we believe 
that the kingdom of Christ is gradually be- 
ing established in the world, that his power 
in men's lives is increasing, and that the 
kingdom of this world will ultimately be- 
come " the kingdom of our Lord and of 
his Christ" (Rev. ii : 15). Apart from 
such faith there would be no effort to uplift 
society. Faith is the dynamic that is doing 
the work of the world. 

Faith and Knowledge 

Faith and knowledge, of course, are never 
wholly separated. They are different 
phases of the soul's activity. Just as the 
old psychology separated the soul into in- 
tellect, feelings, and will, so we too often 
separate faith and knowledge. The newer 

[14] 



JPaltb 

psychology affirms that, while it is con- 
venient for study to separate intellect, feel- 
ings, and will, as a matter of fact the soul 
does not act in parts, but as a unit, that 
every activity of the soul has something 
of intellect, something of feeling, and some- 
thing of will. In like manner, it is con- 
venient to speak of faith and knowledge 
separately; but no act of faith is without 
some knowledge, and no knowledge pro- 
ceeds far without the exercise of faith. 
While faith goes beyond knowledge, knowl- 
edge is a buttress to faith. For exam- 
ple, coupled with the chemist's faith that 
he can achieve certain unknown results 
is a certain knowledge of chemical facts 
and laws. Coupled with one's faith in 
people is a certain knowledge of human 
nature. Coupled with the faith that leads 
the farmer to sow this year's crops, is his 
knowledge of the rains and harvests of 
former years. Coupled with the student's 
faith that he can " make good " in college 
or university, is his knowledge of his own 
past achievements. Coupled also with our 
faith in Jesus Christ is our knowledge of his 
character and work, our observation of lives 
changed by trusting him, the testimony of 

[15] 



Zbc £d0entiald of Cbrtatianiti^ 

friends to Christ's power in their Hves, the 
great historic transformations wrought by 
Christianity, the church's world-wide en- 
deavor to better mankind. Though one 
may not think through these considerations 
as they are set down here, yet the facts in- 
dicated lie in the background of our con- 
sciousness and are a support to faith. 

It may at times be difficult to tell where 
faith ends and knowledge begins, and it is 
not necessary to do so. The important 
things are that faith gives the push up- 
ward in the face of all difficulties; it is the 
normal attitude of strong souls; it is the 
achieving and conquering power in life. 
Midst all our ignorance, and notwithstand- 
ing all mysteries and all unsolved problems, 
it binds us to God and Hnks us to Christ; 
it keeps us forward-looking and upward- 
striving; and it makes the personalities in 
whom we believe, powerful to transform us 
into their likeness. 

Faith as an Attitude 

Faith is the optimistic attitude to life. 
To believe in God, and to trust his justice, 
love, and guidance, fills one with hope and 

[i6] 



jTattb 

courage. To believe that Jesus Christ is 
sent of God, that he gives spiritual life to 
men, that he can transform the individual, 
and that he is guiding the race on its un- 
blazed way to a destined goal, makes one 
both a forward-looking and a present-work- 
ing man. To believe in the redeemableness 
of men, even the worst of them, and in the 
betterment of social conditions, however 
hopeless, girds one with power for heroic 
tasks. To believe in growing goodness in 
the hearts of men, in the ultimate righting 
of all wrongs, in man's fundamental love of 
righteousness, and in the possibility of ulti- 
mately perfecting the social order, is to 
be a worker with God in redeeming the 
world. 

In any undertaking, he who does not be- 
lieve in possible accomplishment is beaten 
before he begins. Belief in one's own un- 
tried powers sets one to work and develops 
applied faculties. Belief draws to one the 
faith and cooperation of others and unites 
their endeavors with one's own. No one 
loves a pessimist ; no one follows a doubter. 
To be a leader of men one must be filled 
with faith that dares attempt the impos- 
sible. 

B [17] 



Ubc £00ential0 of Cbristianfti^ 

Faith in God and in Jesus Christ puts spir- 
itual " pep " into life, gives direction and 
momentum to every spiritual thought, every 
moral impulse, every right endeavor. It 
links with one, and enlists for one, both the 
power of God and the spiritual power in 
men. 

The spiritual work of the world has been 
done by men of faith. In that great chap- 
ter, the eleventh of Hebrews, the writer gives 
a catalog of the heroes of faith — Abra- 
ham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Barak, 
Jephthah, Samuel, David, and many others, 
" who through faith subdued kingdoms, 
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the 
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the 
sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the 
armies of aliens. . . Others had trial of cruel 
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, 
of bonds and imprisonments. They were 
stoned, they were sawn asunder, were 
tempted, were slain with the sword: they 
wandered about in sheepskins and.goatskins ; 
being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they 
wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and 
in dens and caves of the earth. And these 

[i8] 



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all, having" received a good report through 
faith, received not the promise : God having 
some better thing for us, that they without 
us should not be made perfect." 

This remarkable tribute to the unsub- 
duable power of faith could be duplicated in 
our Christian era: Paul, the Christian 
martyr under Roman rule, Savonarola, 
Luther, Wiclif, Ridley, Latimer, Knox, the 
Pilgrim Fathers, Carey, Judson, Living- 
stone, and hosts of others, were all men 
of unsubduable faith. They " believed 
where they could not prove." They at- 
tempted and achieved the seemingly impos- 
sible. Such are always the men who pio- 
neer the way to a larger and better future 
and usher in conditions of finer social 
brotherhood and greater economic justice. 

Faith and Evolution 

Faith is an evolutionary force. From 
what has been said, it is evident that faith 
is a necessary factor in social progress. The 
forces of social evolution are, among others, 
the human faculties — conscience, will, rea- 
son, feeling (love, hate, envy, jealousy, sym- 
pathy), faith, etc. Among these forces the 

[19] 



(Tbc JE0dentia[0 of Cbcidtiantts 

most outstanding is faith. As previously 
stated, it is the pioneering force; it is like 
the needle which points the direction for 
the mariner; it roughly locates the next 
camp on the journey of social progress, and 
bids humanity gird up its loins for the for- 
ward march; it indicates the direction of 
social betterment, and summons all the 
power in God and man for achievement. 

It has been remarked in another connec- 
tion that in biological evolution there is 
found in each species, as it wanes, rough 
indications or prophecies of what the next 
species is to be like, and thus an upward 
course of development is traceable from 
species to species. A similar fact is ob- 
servable in social evolution. Each century 
holds prophecies of the next century. Faith 
is the prophet. What man today believes he 
can do, he does tomorrow ; what he believes 
this century that society can become, it be- 
comes next century. Today's faith indi- 
cates tomorrow's achievement. Yesterday 
man believed that he could fly ; today he is 
flying. Centuries ago man believed that 
steam could be made to do work; today it 
is driving factories and mills, hauling trains, 
and propelling ships. A generation ago man 

[20] 



believed that electricity could be made to 
become his servant; today undersea cables, 
underground and overhead wires, and the 
very atmosphere the world around, are vi- 
brant with hurrying messages. Not long 
ago nations believed that kings were of 
divine appointment; today democracy is 
possessing the world. Yesterday the many 
believed that might made right, both gov- 
ernmentally and economically; today the 
whole world, with few exceptions, believes 
that every person, no matter how weak and 
insignificant, has right to worthful life ; and 
that every nation, however small and un- 
able to protect itself, has the right to work 
out its own destiny in its own place. Not 
many centuries ago most Christians believed 
that Christ came to save a few out of a fast 
perishing world; today the dominant con- 
ception of Christian thinkers is that he came 
to reconstruct human society and to make 
this world a fit place to live in. They re- 
gard the hereafter as safe for all who do 
their appointed task here. They are con- 
cerned with the betterment of human rela- 
tions, the remaking of social conditions, the 
righting of economic wrongs, the bringing 
of heaven down to earth, the transforming 

[21] 



tibe }&00ential0 ot Cbcistianitis 

of the kingdoms of this world into the king- 
dom of our Lord. 

Thus it is clear that faith is the mightiest 
force in the process of social evolution ; 
it blazes the trail to the higher unknown. 
Working with the other social forces, it 
leads the way to the 

Far-oflf divine event 
To which the whole creation moves. 

The outworking of the social process al- 
ways goes beyond our faith. The Old Tes- 
tament prophets, for the most part, looked 
to Jerusalem as the capital of the world, 
with the Hebrews as the dominant people 
and their rule as national. All, of course, 
was conditioned upon righteousness. But 
the facts, as unfolded in history, burst the 
bounds of their vision, overflowed their 
limited hopes, and swept away the barriers 
of their restricted faith. Christ established 
a more glorious kingdom than John the 
Baptist looked forward to, notwithstanding 
that John was his prophet and forerunner. 
The Pilgrim Fathers laid the foundation of 
a freedom that transcended their fairest 
dreams. Carey, Judson, Mofifat, and Liv- 
ingstone kindled a missionary zeal in the 

[22] 



faitb 

world that has oiitflamed their highest ex- 
pectations, and taken a social and economic 
breadth far beyond their vision. We be- 
lieve that the world war, notwithstanding all 
its horrors, will work great good. Many 
items could even now be pointed out. But 
if history repeats itself — always with a dif- 
ference — our feeble faith gives but faintest 
intimation of the world-wide changes that 
will ensue, and the multiple unseen bless- 
ings that will follow. The need and the 
duty of the hour is faith. It gives cour- 
age to fight, self-sacrifice to spend, patriot- 
ism to suffer, and renunciation to die, if 
need be, in order that better, freer, larger 
life than has been given to us may be the 
portion of those who shall come after us. 

Our faith is not in dead saints' bones, 

In altars of vain sacrifice; 
Nor is it in the stately stones 

That rise in beauty toward the skies. 

Our faith is built on living men, 
With singing blood and minds alert; 

Strong men, who fall to rise again, 
Who strive and bleed with courage girt. 

We would not spurn the ancient lore, 
The prophet's word or psalmist's prayer; 

[23] 



Hbc J£30entlal9 ot Cbrlattantt^ 

But, lo! our Leader goes before, 
Tomorrow's battles to prepare. 

Our faith is in a Christ who walks 
With men today, in street and mart; 

Who gives good cheer, who thinks and talks 
With those who seek him with the heart. 

— Thomas Curtis Clarke " The Faith of Christ's 
Freemen." 



[24] 



(5o^ 



GOD 



ALL knowledge, even of common things, 
is partial ; we are learners. Problems 
bristle everywhere. How is it that two 
gases, hydrogen and oxygen, make water? 
Is there as yet no answer to the agelong 
query, Why does grass make wool on a 
sheep, hair on a cow, bristles on a pig, and 
feathers on a chicken? Why does food 
sustain life? Why does heat make vegeta- 
tion grow, and frost retard its growing? 
Why do we love some people and not 
others? Why is everybody not good? 
Why do we so often want to do what rea- 
son tells us we should not do ? 

To some of these questions we might 
venture answers, but other questions would 
push the problems still farther back. There 
is no ultimate explanation. We are com- 
pelled to stop with a simple statement of 
fact — that things are so and so, that they 
do occur. Just as the telescope, while bring- 
ing distant stars into clear view, reveals 

[27] 



^be £d0entiald ot Cbci0tianiti2 

others dimly seen in the far distance, so 
every increment of knowledge, while reveal- 
ing more facts, also makes apparent more 
mysteries. 

On the threshold of our study of God it is 
needful to recognize that the acquiring of 
knowledge is a continuous process. We 
but stultify ourselves, and often close the 
door of our minds, by insisting upon ulti- 
mate solutions to our problems. It is well, 
of course, to solve all possible problems; 
but in our thought of God it is fundamental 
to recognize the magnitude of the task in- 
volved when we seek to go beyond an 
every-day working knowledge and plunge 
into the field of philosophy. Our knowl- 
edge, both of the individual and of the race, 
is a growth. How much more our knowl- 
edge of God! 

A man's conception of God is very dif- 
ferent from a child's conception; and the 
twentieth-century conception is vastly dif- 
ferent from the first-century conception. 
Early races worshiped fetishes. They 
conceived of powers, both malignant and 
beneficent, in sticks, stones, trinkets, birds, 
etc. Later races peopled hills, valleys, lakes, 
streams, woods, fields, springs, and other 

[28] 



<5o5 

places, with spirits. Still other races wor- 
shiped sun, moon, and stars — " all the 
hosts of heaven." Greeks, Romans, and 
other peoples, worshiped ancestral spirits. 
By most races gods were represented by, or 
located in, images made by men's hands. 
American Indians worshiped the Great 
Spirit — not a poor conception of God, were 
it divorced from numerous gross supersti- 
tions. The early Hebrews worshiped Jeho- 
vah, but as the God of the Hebrews only, 
while they believed in Isis and Osiris as 
gods of the Egyptians, and the sun-god and 
moon-god as gods of the Babylonians. 
Thus the knowing of God is a long, slow 
process. It was a great step forward when 
Hebrew prophets declared that the gods of 
the nations were idols, and that Jehovah 
was the God of the whole world. ( i Chron. 
1 6 : 26.) Only in comparatively recent 
times has God been worshiped as righteous, 
and as demanding righteousness in his wor- 
shipers. Heathen gods, as we call them, had 
human passions — jealousy, hate, cruelty, 
envy, lust, vindictiveness, etc. Much 
heathen worship was due to fear. It 
sought to placate the anger of the gods and 
to ward off their cruelty. Worship on " the 

[29] 



^be B00cnt(al0 ot Cbtfstfaniti? 

high places," to which the Hebrews often 
turned aside, was accompanied with Hcen- 
tious orgies. (Ezek. i6 : 29-39.) Even the 
Hebrews, spiritually the most highly en- 
dowed, and religiously the best trained of 
all races, found the acquisition of the knowl- 
edge of God both a gradual and a slow 
process. Of this fact the Old Testament it- 
self bears eloquent testimony. 

Some may object that this simply makes 
God a big man, predicating of him human 
qualities raised to the highest degree. This 
is true, and ought to be true. It is in- 
evitable from the nature of our thought 
processes. We must interpret God in terms 
of experience. No other terms are avail- 
able to us, for we cannot understand any 
other. If we should make God only force, 
the content of the idea would necessarily be 
our experience of force raised to the high- 
est power; if law, our experience of law 
imagined as perfect; if personality, our ex- 
perience of persons raised to the degree of 
limitless perfection. 

Naturally, and all but inevitably, we think 
of God as a person. We cannot think of 
him as less than ourselves ; we think, sym- 
pathize, love, regard right and wrong, value 

[30] 



(5o& 

truth and justice, etc. The best we can do 
is to predicate of God in absolute degree 
the qualities we know in ourselves. 

Do we, then, know God in fact? and do 
we know him as he is? We know him as 
we know all persons, and by the same 
means. 

We see each other's bodies, but cannot 
see each other's spirits ; yet we know each 
other's thoughts, purposes, and acts. Like- 
wise, we see the world in which we live, and 
something of the universe which surrounds 
it, and by these we come to know something 
of God's thoughts, purposes, and acts. 

We accept each other as acquaintances, 
we become friends, we love each other, we 
have fellowship together. The relation is 
one between spirit and spirit. We may re- 
fuse acquaintance and turn from each other 
if we will, thus making it impossible to 
know each other in experience, or we can 
turn gladly toward each other and know 
each other in experience ever more fully. 

In like manner we may know God in ex- 
perience. If we turn toward him in atti- 
tude of soul, if we accept and cultivate his 
acquaintance, there come knowledge of him, 
love for him, fellowship, confidence, and 

[31] 



XTbe £60ential0 ot Cbtiatianitis 

trust, the same as in our acquaintance with 
individuals. 

It thus becomes evident why the know- 
ing of God is a gradual process. A peo- 
ple of low ethical standards like the As- 
syrians, for example, could not conceive of 
a very ethical God. When the highest 
ethics of a people is " an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth," their god will be 
one of vengeance. But when ethics have 
advanced to love of enemies, the god will 
be one of love and mercy. In a word, 
man's conception of the character of God 
advances with advancement in human ethics. 
It is current ethics idealized. As ethics 
rise from lower to higher, led upward by 
the Spirit of God working in the hearts 
of men, man's conception of God unfolds. 
Erroneous conceptions of God drop off as 
false ideas of character and conduct are 
left behind. Worthier conceptions supplant 
them as more ethical character develops. 

This long, tedious racial process of com- 
ing to the knowledge of God is both natu- 
ral and inevitable. It could not be other- 
wise, not because God cannot reveal himself 
to men, but because men, from their very 
nature, cannot apprehend, except gradually, 

[32] 



<30D 

the knowledge, of God. The race grows in 
capacity Hke a child. Higher mathematics 
are not taught in the kindergarten, not be- 
cause the instructor cannot teach them, but 
because children are not mature enough to 
understand them. Racial capacity, like in- 
dividual capacity, grows. To every increase 
of knowledge there is a " fulness of time," 
just as there was a fulness of time to the 
coming of Christ. (Gal. 4:4.) Even 
Christ could not tell his disciples " many 
things " ; the time was not ripe ; their ex- 
periences were not adequate to enable them 
to understand. At the close of his minis- 
try he said to them, " I have yet many things 
to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now" (John 16 : 12). They could not 
know the things indicated until they had 
grown up to them and been persuaded of 
them through experience. Both to the in- 
dividual and to the race the knowledge of 
God comes gradually. 

This simple fact should make plain to 
every one that he is destined to live with 
problems about God, problems that he will 
never wholly solve. Were one to give his 
whole time and thought to the matter, he 
could hope at most to add only his little bit 

c [33] 



Zbc l£00ential0 of Cbctdtianits 

to the solution of the agelong problems 
which, in one form or another, have been in 
the minds of men from the beginning. 

The really valuable conception of God is 
one that moves us to action. Knowledge 
ignored in action has no significance for 
experience. It lacks evolutionary dynamic. 
Instead of helping the race forward it 
leaves it with an intensified habit of inertia. 
Neither the individual nor the race can 
take in any greater knowledge of God than 
it will live out. Knowing, moreover, as 
Christ said, comes by doing. The knowl- 
edge of God, under the leading of the 
Spirit, must be literally battered out of ex- 
perience. " He that willeth to do his will 
shall know of the teaching" (John 7 : 17). 

It becomes apparent, then, that the matter 
of supreme importance is not to solve all 
problems about God, but to begin doing 
God's will as far as one knows it. More 
light comes by following the light one has. 

A Universal Method 

This method of knowing is not peculiar 
to religion. It is the method in all fields 
of knowledge. An experiment in the chem- 

[34] 



(5o5 

ical laboratory gives us knowledge that we 
can secure in no other way. There is just 
one way to learn to swim, and that is to 
swim; one way to learn music, and that is 
to practise; one way to learn to farm, and 
that is to have experience with the soil. 
To be sure, in all these cases we get help 
from books and teachers, but the books 
themselves come from experience. More- 
over, all that is learned from books and 
teachers we take on faith. We do not really 
know for ourselves until we have lived 
through the experience. How much can 
one tell another of love, sorrow, jealousy, 
or hate? In order to know these passions 
we must experience them. A lover is 
thought silly by those who have never been 
in love, while a little experience is a de- 
cided illumination, and brings us to knowl- 
edge. Mother-love and father-love can be 
known only by fathers and mothers. Hus- 
band and wife are a constant revelation to 
each other because they live together and 
love each other. The extreme depth of 
cither's personality is never sounded by the 
other. New beauties are revealed daily. 
New circumstances uncover unsuspected 
riches of devotion; and the harder the cir- 

[35] 



Zbc £d0entia[0 of Cbtidtianiti? 

cumstances the greater is the beauty of 
character unfolded. In a word, they come 
to know each other by Hving together and 
having experience of each other. 

The way to know God is to experience 
him, to Hve and work with him, to love 
him and do his will. This fact Christ rec- 
ognized when, refusing to answer numer- 
ous inquiries, he said to men, '' Follow me." 
In no other way could they know him. 

Building Moral Character 

It is important to observe that the highest 
moral character possible at any given time 
lies in doing God's will as one understands 
it. We often marvel, and sometimes really 
shudder, at the savage cruelty of Old Tes- 
tament wars. Men, women, and children 
are ruthlessly slain by the Hebrews in bat- 
tle — the very thing that we have denounced 
as a stain upon Christian civilization in the 
world war. Yet from these cruel battles the 
Hebrews returned rejoicing in Jehovah as 
the God of battles, never doubting that in 
their ruthless slaughter they were doing 
God's will. 

These cruel ideas were the ideas of the 

[36] 



age. All nations held them and practised 
them. Moreover, all nations regarded their 
gods as going before them in war and giv- 
ing victory in battle if they were strong 
enough to do so. 

At no time do people rise very far 
above their age. The particular features 
which any battle takes on depend on the 
ideas of the age in which it is fought. 
Elijah slew with his own hands the four 
hundred prophets of Baal, and regarded the 
deed as a great triumph for Jehovah, 
(i Kings i8 : 17-40.) We live in an age 
which condemns persecution for religious 
beliefs and practices ; and such a slaughter 
for such a purpose, we should regard as 
fiendish. Samuel condemns Saul unspar- 
ingly for not utterly destroying the sheep 
and cattle of the Amalekites, in addition to 
the Amalekites themselves, big and little, 
young and old, men and women, (i Sam. 
15 : igi.) We should regard the doing of 
the same things, not only as wanton cruelty, 
but as a wicked waste of substance. Paul 
thought that he did God service by per- 
secuting the church. (Acts 26 : 9.) 

The important thing is not the form of 
the battle we fight. That is determined by 

[37] 



Zbc Basentiatd of Cbtidtianitis 

the ideas of the age, and also, as in Paul's 
case, by personal ideas. Both sets of ideas 
change, the first by the progressing age, 
and the second by the individual's progress- 
ing experience. The vitally important mat- 
ter is that we consciously fight God's battles 
as we see them. These are not the same in 
any two ages. The Christian centuries, not 
to go farther back, have seen battles with 
heathenism, battles over doctrines, reforma- 
tion battles, slavery battles, temperance bat- 
tles, and many others. Some battles, of 
course, are fought out, but others take their 
places. At the present hour, for example, 
the Christian emphasis is not upon doctrine 
but upon ethics and service; not upon be- 
ing saved in the kingdom of God hereafter, 
but upon building the kingdom of God 
here, a kingdom that shall be socially, eco- 
nomically, and internationally righteous. In 
these present-day problems there are just as 
real battles as ever were fought from trench 
and submarine. We fight to bring our- 
selves to God's will as we see it; and we 
fight to get God's will, as we see it, done in 
society. 

In thus fighting God's battles, we doubt- 
less are as blind in our way as were the 

[38] 



<5oD 

heroes of the Old Testament in theirs, 
though on a higher plane. We doubtless 
make as many mistakes in regard to what 
God's will is as they did. But in progres- 
sive knowledge, as formerly in progressive 
revelation, man is shut up to just one thing, 
viz., to the fighting of God's battles as he 
sees them. Men must fight according to 
their light, and according to the light of 
their age. This is both the highest possible 
ethics for the moment, and also the con- 
dition of rising to higher ethics in the 
future. To do less is to lower one's ethical 
standard and to be untrue to one's age, for 
it is to turn one's back on God. 

The knowledge of God, then, is ever par- 
tial, both for the age and for the individual. 
It comes to both as it is welcomed in ex- 
perience; and it is experienced by doing 
God's will according to one's light. Our 
experience of God is most intense when we 
consciously fight his battles, both within 
ourselves and for our generation. 

Christ the Revelation of God 

The clearest and fullest knowledge of 
God comes to us, of course, in Jesus Christ. 

[39] 



dbe JEeecntialB of Cbridtianitis 

The author once asked a Christian woman, 
who sang for a time in a Jewish synagogue, 
what idea of God the services gave her. 
She repHed that God seemed " so far away " 
that she could get no " heart-grip," that God 
seemed to be wholly " intellectualized." 
Recall in this connection the words of Paul, 
" But now, in Christ Jesus, ye that once 
were far off, are made nigh by the blood of 
Christ" (Eph. 2 : 13). I presume that we 
who are accustomed to think of God in 
terms of Christ little realize how cold and 
distant God would be to us but for the fact 
that we habitually think of him through the 
medium of Christ's sympathetic personality 
and loving ministry. 

Emphasis must here rest upon the fact 
that Christ is a person, and reveals God's 
personal qualities. He does not leave us 
with a God that is simply force or law. He 
always speaks of God as a person. " He 
that hath seen me," he says, " hath seen the 
Father" (John 14:9). "I and my 
Father are one" (John 10: 30). He 
speaks of the Father's will, love, and watch- 
care — all expressive of personality. 

Christ reveals God as a loving personal- 
ity. Love is contained in the name Father; 

[40] 



000 

in the teaching that God so loved that he 
sent Christ; in the parable of the Prodigal 
Son (Luke 15 : 11-32) ; in all Christ's ex- 
hortations to prayer; in fact, it suffuses all 
Christ's teachings and permeates his every 
attitude. 

Christ reveals God as righteous, and as 
demanding righteousness in men. All his 
teachings about rewards and punishments 
speak of God's justice. The righteous are 
rewarded ; the wicked are punished. Nota- 
ble teachings on this point are the parables 
of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16 : 19-31) 
and the Last Judgment (Matt. 25 : 31-46), 
in which the righteous are gathered on the 
right hand and the wicked on the left. 

Christ reveals God as forgiving. He bids 
his disciples pray, " Forgive us our debts 
as we forgive our debtors." To those who 
came to him for physical healing he some- 
times said, " Thy sins be forgiven thee " 
(Matt. 9:2). And he insisted that God 
was more willing to forgive us our sins than 
fathers to forgive their children. 

Christ reveals God as having a peculiarly 
sympathetic and tender care for men. This 
teaching lies in the parables of the Good 
Shepherd (John 10) and the Prodigal Son 

[41] 



^be )600ential0 ot CbtieUmifs 

(Luke 15 : 11-32); in such passages as 
" The very hairs of your head are all num- 
bered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more 
value than many sparrows " (Luke 12 : 7) ; 
in all exhortations to prayer, and in such 
definite statements as " If ye then, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more shall your Father 
which is in heaven give good things to them 
that ask him" (Matt. 7 : 11). 

Christ reveals God as hopeful of men. 
He made himself the champion of the sin- 
ful and, by his sympathy, faith, and love, 
won them to righteousness. He said that 
he came, not to call the righteous, but sin- 
ners to repentance; to heal, not the well, 
but the sick. (Luke 5 : 31, 32.) 

Christ reveals God as no respecter of per- 
sons. He did not turn away from any class, 
but plainly said, " For whosoever shall do 
the will of God, the same is my brother, 
and my sister, and mother " (Mark 3 : 35). 
He associated with the rich and learned as 
freely as with the poor and ignorant. He 
valued man as man, and not for any trap- 
pings that man might possess. He insisted 
that people were no more and no less than 
what they were at heart. He inveighed 

[42] 



(3od 

against mere formal worship and parade of 
righteousness. 

Christ revealed God as yearning and 
striving to bring men into fellowship with 
himself. Thus only could they secure 
worthful, abounding life. " I am come," he 
said, " that they might have life, and that 
they might have it more abundantly " (John 
10 : lo). He pictured the kingdom of 
God, which he bade men enter, as a wed- 
ding (Matt. 22 : 2-14), a feast (Luke 14 : 
16-24), a costly pearl (Matt. 13 : 45, 46), 
a rich treasure (Matt. 13 : 44), and, above 
all, as eternal life, (John 3 : 16.) 

The Essential Things 

Christ does not give us a complete revela- 
tion of God, but only such a revelation as 
man needs and craves, a revelation that 
awakens man to God's love, makes him 
aware of God's companionship, and sets 
him to work with God. 

Our scientific and philosophic studies, 
while displacing nothing of Christ's revela- 
tion, have corrected many errors which had 
accumulated about his teachings. No longer 
do we think of God as an absentee land- 

[43] 



tbc £6dentiald of Cbrietianttig 

lord, but rather as an immanent Spirit. No 
longer do we view the universe as run by 
self-acting laws, but rather by the imme- 
diate activity of divine energy. No longer 
do we regard the world as created complete 
at the beginning, but as being in a continu- 
ous process of creation. Science and phi- 
losophy corroborate John when, in his 
vision, he hears God saying, " Behold ! I 
make all things new." The heavens and 
the earth, man and society, are in a con- 
tinuous process of renewal. 

Aside from his relation to man as Father, 
God has relations to the physical universe, 
to natural law, to the whole process of 
creation. About these relations, of course, 
we may speculate, and we shall doubtless 
learn more about them as the centuries 
sweep on. Our philosophy has always been 
a changing thing. It will continue to 
change, and, we trust, to improve. We 
should strive for a progressive philosophy 
of God, just as we strive for progressive 
knowledge in all fields of learning. Knowl- 
edge of God is not, and should not be, a 
fixed and finished product, but, on the con- 
trary, a grounng process. " We know now 
in part " ; but then — more fully. 

[44] 



(3o& 

Christ, however, avoids the philosophical 
problems which so often trouble us. He 
does not discuss God's methods in creation, 
his relation to natural laws, or such theo- 
logical questions as omnipotence, omni- 
presence, God's foreknowledge and man's 
free will, and a hundred other questions 
that we are curious about. Christ gives us 
a helpful, working conception of a God 
that we can live with, work with, love, 
trust, and obey — a personal, loving, right- 
eous, and forgiving God; a God of sym- 
pathy and tender compassion, who is hope- 
ful of man at his worst, and no respecter of 
persons ; a God who looks, not on the out- 
ward appearance, but on the heart, and is 
ever working to bring man to himself that 
he may bless him, impart himself to him, 
and bring him into the fulness of joyful, 
abounding life. 

We serve no God whose work is done, 
Who rests within his firmament, 

But one whose task is but begun, 
Who toils todaj'', with power unspent. 

— T. C. Clark, " The Faith of Christ's Free- 
men." 



[45] 



null 

Cbtigt 



CHRIST 



A YOUNG man once said to the writer, 
'' Grod's relation to us would be simple 
enough if Jesus Christ had just kept out." 
This remark indicated, not that he under- 
stood God apart from Christ, for he had 
given the subject little thought, but that 
the nearer the problem was brought to him 
the more difficulty he found with it. A 
landscape is simple enough when far enough 
away, but the nearer we approach the more 
diversified are its objects, and the more mul- 
tiple and intricate their relations. Many 
things now complex would have remained 
simple if telescopes and microscopes had not 
been invented. Christ brings more prob- 
lems than does God because he brings God 
near and reveals new relations. 

Knowing Christ 

It is natural that many should have dif- 
ficulties in understanding Christ. During a 
certain period of mental development the 

D [ 49] 



Hbe B06entiald of Cbtf0tianit)s 

mind seeks to fathom everything. While 
varying in different persons, this period, 
roughly speaking, embraces the years be- 
tween seventeen and twenty-five. During 
this time it is of the utmost importance to 
hold steady, and to realize that the mind 
simply outgrows some things. As years 
pass we come upon so much that we cannot 
fathom, so many things that the ages have 
worked on and have not fathomed, that we 
become reconciled to live with mysteries, 
and are glad to walk by faith where before 
we demanded sight. 

Of one thing we should be certain, that 
our effort to do the .will of Christ is always 
stronger than our effort to understand 
Christ. Christ himself says, " He that will- 
eth.to do his will, shall know of the teach- 
ifigf" (John 7 : 17). Unwillingness to do 
Christ's will clouds the mind. It invites 
and raises difficulties which, but for such 
unwillingness, faith and love and eager- 
ness to serve would either pierce through 
or brush aside. 

Personality is never fully understood, and 
Christ is a person. Even an ordinary per- 
son is a continuous revelation. The greater 
one's powers, the less one is understood. 

[50] 



Cbt(0t 

The genius is a puzzle to the rest of us. 
That is the reason we call him a genius. 
The term is a cloak for our ignorance. The 
more of a genius he is, the more of a puzzle 
he is. 

It is common for those who find mys- 
teries in Christ to say, what is self-evident 
to all, that Christ is more than a man. But 
to say this is to admit ourselves shut out 
from understanding all that lies in the 
word " more." Man can understand only 
what comes within his own experience, or 
what is analogous thereto. He may, how- 
ever, have faith in what transcends experi- 
ence. 

Our main difficulty, however, lies, not in 
the fact that we cannot understand Christ, 
but rather in our dissatisfaction with theol- 
ogies about him. No doubt we ought to 
be dissatisfied with them. Each century 
has constructed its theology of Christ on 
the basis of current types of philosophy, 
government, social practice, and forms of 
worship. No century could or can do other- 
wise. 

Explanations of Christ have changed 
from century to century, and ought to 
change, Christ promises the Holy Spirit 

[51] 



tXbe I660cntfal0 ot Cbrlstianlti? 

to take of the things of himself and reveal 
them to men (John i6 : 14) ; but Christ re- 
mains the same; his relations to us do not 
change. Before Christ came the scribes and 
Pharisees had him defined, and even had his 
program arranged. Their hatred of him 
and opposition to him were due to the fact 
that he neither fitted their definitions nor 
would follow their program. 

If we had Christ all understood and de- 
fined today, he would shatter our defini- 
tions and transcend the bounds of our un- 
derstanding tomorrow. He could not be 
the leader of human progress unless he did 
so. He has been doing this through all the 
Christian centuries, and for this reason the 
centuries have been growing toward him. 
A Christ pent up, defined, understood, could 
not be the " captain of our salvation " (Heb. 
2 : 10), leading humanity toward God and 
unfolding the divine life of God in man. 

It is of utmost importance, then, to note 
carefully the methods of knowing persons, 
remembering meanwhile that Jesus Christ 
is a person. 

I. We come to understand persons by 
living with them. Go on a month's camp- 
ing trip with a man, and you will learn 

[52] 



Cbridt 

much about him that you did not know be- 
fore. If two women would really know each 
other, let them live together in the same 
house. People are acquainted when they 
marry, and yet they really know very little 
of each other. Married life, as previously 
stated, is a continuous revelation. When 
husband and wife have spent fifty years to- 
gether, and children and grandchildren 
gather at the old home to celebrate their 
golden wedding, they know each other as 
they could not know each other on their 
wedding-day. Fifty years of companion- 
ship in joy and sorrow, disappointment and 
triumph, success and failure, have been a 
continuous revelation of each to the other; 
and in no- other way is it possible for them 
to become thus known to each other. Ex- 
planations of personality would be trivial 
and unavailing. 

It becomes apparent, then, how sensible 
and true to the laws of life Christ's method 
was when, refusing all explanations of him- 
self, he simply said to those who would be 
disciples, " Follow me " ; that is, be learn- 
ers through companionship with me. 

2. We come to know by experience. No 
one can explain his experience to another 

[53] 



Zbc Beecntiaie ot Cbrtstianitis 

who has not had the same or Hke experience. 
A painting, a sunset, a landscape, find no 
adequate expression in words. They must 
be experienced. Only those who have seen 
them understand each other when words 
are used to describe them. Years ago a 
young man, standing among the rock-chips 
of a petrified forest in Arizona, which had 
just been wet by a shower of rain that 
made all the colors live, could not hold 
back the tears. Only those with artistic 
temperament, and to whom like experiences 
were possible, could understand such tears. 
To others they would seem weak and fool- 
ish. Only the lover can understand a lover. 
Only the converted man is in position to 
understand the converted man — his new 
love, his changed purposes, his willing self- 
denial. 

On the same principles, and by the same 
laws of our nature, we understand Christ 
as we experience what Christ experienced — 
obedience to the Father; confidence in the 
Father's love; love for the sinful; self- 
giving for the undeserving; disappoint- 
ment in friends ; hatred by enemies ; patience 
with the dull and indifferent; yearning 
desire and strenuous endeavor to bring 

[54] 



Cbri0t 

the sinful and suffering into the forgiv- 
ing love of God; being misunderstood, 
even by disciples, maligned, abused, and at 
length crucified for obeying God and loving 
men. In proportion as we pass through 
these experiences, not to mention deeper 
and more mysterious ones, may we hope to 
understand Christ. 

3. We understand persons as we become 
like them. Artists understand artists. 
Mothers understand mothers. Sinners un- 
derstand sinners. The righteous under- 
stand the righteous — their motives, pur- 
poses, love, and service. 

Surely, then, the folly of seeking satis- 
factory explanations of Christ, explanations 
that construe his personality to our philos- 
ophy, and his vital processes to our logic, is 
evident. It is contrary to the laws of life 
to understand Christ except as we follow 
him, live with him, enter into his experi- 
ences, love him, and work with him. To 
know Christ is a lifelong process. Even 
at the end of life, though life be long, we 
know, as Paul said, " in part." It is prom- 
ised, however, that in the eternal eons we 
shall see him as he is — when we shall have 
become like him. (i John 3:2.) 

[55] 



^be }£d6ential6 ot Cbttdttanlts 

A Scientific Method 

This method of knowing Christ is not 
only Christ's own method, but also the 
scientific method. 

1. Like all scientific methods, it involves 
a venture of faith. Pupils believe in, and 
entrust themselves to, their teachers. We 
entrust ourselves to railroads, steamships, 
and all means of conveyance. We eat 
freely at restaurants and hotels, whose cooks 
we do not know. We place our lives in the 
hands of physicians. Life itself is a great 
venture and involves faith at every turn. To 
live the Christian life, adopt Christ's prin- 
ciples, trust Christ's power, believe in and 
work for Christ's program, involves a ven- 
ture of faith. In this respect it is like the 
whole of life. But it is the highest venture 
of faith for the highest goal and the highest 
service. 

2. This method of knowing Christ, like 
all effective methods, involves a definite pur- 
pose. The chemist seeks a definite result. 
Educators aim to develop the individual 
and fit him for life. Investigators work on 
definite problems. As we thus pursue defi- 
nite purposes we hit upon much unexpected 

[56] 



Cbriat 

knowledge, but without definite purpose and 
well-directed endeavor, one is not carried 
far in any field of learning. 

Christ's purpose is to produce the best 
type of life, both in the individual and in 
society. Whoever does not join him in 
this definite purpose, both for his own life 
and for the social good, may as well at once 
abandon all hope of knowing Christ. Who- 
ever desires the best life for himself, ear- 
nestly seeks it, and is willing to pay the 
price of progress, will find his knowledge of 
Christ increasing with his growing experi- 
ence. 

3. This method of knowing Christ is in- 
ductive. It draws knowledge from experi- 
ence. The chief characteristic of modern 
study is the inductive, as contrasted with the 
deductive, method. In biology, geology, 
sociology, and the other sciences, we deal 
with concrete facts, not with theories. We 
act upon the little knowledge we have, and 
are thus led to more knowledge. Acting 
on what we know of electricity, we light 
our homes, send messages, drive cars, and 
look at each other's bones. 

This modern method of experiment is the 
one to which Christ invites us, and the only 

[57] 



^be Bddcnttale ot Cbrtatianiti^ 

one. " Follow me," test me, prove me, he 
constantly insisted, while shunting all ques- 
tions of theory about himself. (Matt. 4 : 
19; Luke 5 : 27; Mark 8 : 34; 10 : 21.) 

4. Knowledge of Christ comes by obedi- 
ence to law, like all other scientific knowl- 
edge. When the chemist disobeys chemical 
laws he bursts the test-tube, or blows up 
both himself and the laboratory. When the 
engineer disobeys the laws of physics the 
boiler bursts, or the building tumbles down, 
or the train crashes through the bridge. 
Disobedience to law, of course, brings nega- 
tive knowledge — if we survive the dis- 
obedience ; it tells us what not to do, but 
not what to do. Obedience to law gives 
constructive knowledge. It makes us co- 
operators with God. All his laws are at 
our beck and call as long as we obey them, 
while disobedience to law spells defeat and 
destruction. 

In like manner, obedience to Christ makes 
all the laws of divine personality operative 
in us. Our characters are molded by asso- 
ciation with him ; love for him grows as we 
do for him and he for us ; the more we love 
him the more we become like him ; through 
our companionship with him his passion to 

[58] 



Cbttat 

help and bless men grows upon us. These 
are simple and well-known laws of person- 
ality. They make us partners and cowork- 
ers with God through Jesus Christ. 

Big Questions 

It is of vital importance for young people 
to learn to live with, work patiently upon, 
and add their mite to, the solution of prob- 
lems which no person, generation, or cen- 
tury settles. The young are eager to settle 
questions about Christ that have baffled all 
thinkers, such as, for example, How can 
God become incarnate? Is Christ really 
God? How can human and divine nature 
be joined in one person? How does Christ 
save us? How can one be converted by 
accepting Christ ? How can Christ and evo- 
lution both be true? and many others. 

Christ has never been explained, and 
doubtless never will be. Were he so sim- 
ple and shallow that we could explain him, 
he doubtless could not be the Saviour of 
men. A Christ who grips life at its very 
heart, who awakens in one new desires and 
passions, who imparts himself increasingly 
to the race, who becomes the center of 

[59] 



Ube ^essentials of Cbdsttanit^ 

human love, the acknowledged commander 
of human endeavor, and the dominant force 
in organizing society on an increasingly 
high basis of righteousness and brother- 
hood, is beyond all explanation. He be- 
comes an ever deeper mystery. 

Christ was a puzzle to the religious lead- 
ers of his own day, and an unsolved problem 
to his own disciples. Paul speaks of the 
mystery of Christ, " unto the Jews a stum- 
bling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; 
but unto them which are called, both Jews 
and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and 
the wisdom of God " ( i Cor. i : 23, 24 ; see 
Eph. 3:4; 6 : 19; I Tim. 3 : 9, 16). 
Christ himself, speaking of spiritual birth, 
said that it could not be explained, but was 
a fact, like the wind, which rose and fell 
without the cause being known. (See John 

3 : 7, 8.) 

It should be observed that the Bible 
labors — fairly groans — to express in terms 
of human experience, who and what Christ 
is. It calls him Son of God and Son of 
Man. We know something of sons in our 
homes — their place in the heart of the 
father, their relations to each other, their 
duties of filial obedience, their unity with 

[60] 



Cbrist 

the father in purpose and endeavor. All 
this Christ is to God and men. 

The Bible calls Christ a king. Christ 
himself admits that he is a king. (John 
1 8 : 37.) We know something of kings — 
their right to rule, the duty of subjects, etc. 

Christ is called a redeemer. In the days 
of slavery the redeemer was one who bought 
back the slave and set him free. Peo- 
ple understood something of the work of a 
redeemer. 

Christ is called our sacrifice. (Eph. 5 : 
2.) It was a time when both heathen and 
Jewish sacrifices were common, and peo- 
ple understood their significance. They 
were a means of approach to God, an of- 
fering for sins committed, a way of recon- 
ciliation with God and of beginning life 
again with a clean sheet. 

Christ is called priest. (Heb. 2 : 17.) 
People understood the function of priests. 
They stood between God and men; they 
brought men's offerings to God; they 
pleaded with God for men; they sought to 
keep men right with God ; they made known 
to men the will of God. 

Christ was called, and called himself, a 
servant. (Luke 22 : 27.) All knew the 

[61] 



^be £65entia(d of Cbridtianitig 

work of a servant. He was obedient to 
his master; he bore the burdens of others; 
his was a Hfe of ministry. 

Christ calls himself the good shepherd. 
(John 10 : ii.) The people were familiar 
with the love, solicitude, and watch-care 
of shepherds — how they led their flocks into 
green pastures and beside refreshing 
waters ; how they fought off wild beasts 
and brought the lambs safely into the fold ; 
how they sought lost sheep, and did not 
hesitate to sacrifice life searching for them. 

Qirist calls himself the bread of life. 
(John 6 : 35.) In a country where beg- 
gars were numerous, where multitudes were 
poor, where conquering armies frequently 
swept away the harvests, people knew inten- 
sively the meaning of bread and its sig- 
nificance for life. 

Christ calls himself the water of life. 
(John 4 : 14.) In a country of highlands 
and deserts, where small streams went dry 
in summer, and failure of rains often pro- 
duced famines, the people knew the life- 
giving value of water. 

Christ calls himself the vine, and his dis- 
ciples branches. (John 15 : 1-8.) It was in 
a country of grapes. All understood how 

[62] 



Cbd0t 

dependent branches were upon the vine, and 
how the life of the vine flowed through the 
branches. 

Christ called himself the light of the 
world, the way, the truth, the life. By still 
other names he was called. Every term 
was one falling within human experience, 
and lifting up out of experience a certain 
character-quality or spiritual relationship. 
These terms — son, king, redeemer, sacrifice, 
priest, servant, shepherd, vine, bread, water, 
light, way, truth, life — taken together, 
doubtless only begin to express to us what 
Christ really is to the race. They illus- 
trate both the wealth and the poverty of 
human expression. Christ is more than all 
of them. Human knowledge and experi- 
ence doubtless do not contain ideas or terms 
adequate to express fully what Jesus Christ 
is to humanity. He overfills and overflows 
all our ideas, all our terms, all our experi- 
ences. This fact Paul, the greatest ex- 
pounder of Christ, evidently felt when, as 
in a burst of exultant despair over explana- 
tions, he exclaimed, " In him dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 

2 : 9); 

Christ makes the understandlnsr of him- 



*fc) 



[63] 



^be :ie00cnttal6 ot CbrtettanftiJ 

self an agelong task — something into which 
the race grows as it experiences him — when 
he says to his disciples : " I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear 
them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit 
of truth, is come, he will guide you into all 
the truth; . . for he shall receive of mine, 
and shall show it unto you " (John i6 : 
12-14). 

The rapid changes going on at present 
in religious thought amply illustrate Christ's 
teaching, that the Spirit of God is reveal- 
ing to the growing mind of the race more 
and more of the truth in Christ. For ex- 
ample : For centuries men have emphasized 
the cross of Christ as the basis of salvation, 
and the salvation was thought of as safety 
in heaven hereafter. Today, while we hold 
both of these facts as precious truths, the 
emphasis has shifted, and the truths are 
seen in relations not before discerned. No 
longer do men believe that the cross of 
Christ will avail for him who neglects his 
own cross. They believe that as the way 
of the cross was the way of Christ's life, so 
every one who finds life must find it by 
way of the cross accepted as a principle of 
action for his own life. The later concep- 

[64] 



QbxiBt 

tion of the cross is maturer and more ade- 
quate than the earher one. It betokens the 
breaking of a new Hght upon the soul of 
man from Christ's words, " Whosoever 
doth not bear his cross, and come after me, 
cannot be my disciple." 

Today also the cross of Christ is re- 
garded, not only as a means of saving us 
in heaven, precious as that is, but more 
especially as a means of building heaven 
on earth. The cross of Christ, borne by 
men, means, in the life of men, love instead 
of hate, brotherliness instead of selfishness, 
the square deal instead of exploitation, help- 
fulness instead of indifference to others' 
needs, self-giving instead of self-seeking, 
" each for all, and all for each." The way 
of the cross is life, not simply a means to 
life. It is the abounding life, and any other 
sort of life is poor and mean and poverty- 
stricken compared with it. It is eternal life, 
life that grows on forever, flowering ever 
more gloriously as it grows. 

Today, when one takes the cross into one's 
own life and lives it, we have no concern 
whatever about his salvation hereafter. We 
look for that to arrive as a matter of course, 
guaranteed by the quality of the life lived 

E [65] 



^be Bddentiald of Cbridtianitis 

here — life united to Christ, lived by the 
power of Christ, and having the quality 
of Christ's life. 

And thus, as the centuries sweep on, the 
mind of the race ever maturing, and the 
Spirit of God ever teaching, we find our- 
selves, not going beyond Christ, but under- 
standing him more fully. In the light of 
such facts, for one to seek adequate ex- 
planation of Christ, and to refuse to link 
his life with Christ until such explanation 
is forthcoming, is like the questioning child 
of four refusing to eat or drink until his 
father has answered all his machine-gun 
questions about food and drink. We know 
Christ by associating with him, working 
with him, taking into our lives his purposes, 
and experiencing the worth-whileness of 
sacrificing for truth and righteousness be- 
cause men need truth and righteousness. 

Christ Is Power 

The person, Christ Jesus, in personal re- 
lations with the individual, is power. While 
during a brief three years he walked with 
his disciples, he transformed them from 
commonplace men into spiritual idealists and 

[66] 



Cbrfdt 

moral heroes. He filled them with bound- 
less faith in God and men. He kindled in 
them an undying love, for which they gladly 
worked, suffered, and died. He filled them 
with contagious and persuasive power over 
men, a power which caused men to turn 
their backs on heathenism, forsake sinful 
lives, love things before hated, and hate 
things before loved. 

This miracle of transforming power has 
not ceased. There are several types of con- 
version — cataclasmic, calm and serene, and 
all the way between the two. The type is 
determined by differing conditions of home, 
school, church, beliefs, etc. But Christ's 
power in the life is manifest in all types. 
One in association with Christ is trans- 
formed, purified, and given poise, steadi- 
ness, and strength to pursue the good; he 
is filled with hope, courage, and heroism for 
righteousness. On the other hand, the mo- 
ment a person consciously and wilfully dis- 
associates himself from Christ, he begins to 
decline spiritually and morally; he begins 
to lose faith in God and men; he ceases to 
be a wholesome and uplifting dynamic in 
other lives. 

The power of Christ has changed and 

[67] 



^be Bdsentiald of Cbridtianiti^ 

is changing the conditions of society. Some 
evils, such as slavery, are wholly done av^ay. 
So extensively has the spirit of brotherhood 
spread, that v^ar, once the ordinary busi- 
ness of nations, is condemned by the whole 
race, except as a national necessity, and as 
a measure of self-defense. Ridiculous as it 
was, Germany must put forth the self-de- 
fense plea to justify war to her own peo- 
ple. Charity — organized, expensive, but im- 
perative — a product of Christ' s spirit in 
men, hastens to supply human needs wher- 
ever they appear on the entire globe. This 
fact, the multiple ministries of the Red 
Cross, the Young Men's and Young Wo- 
men's Christian Associations, and the 
Knights of Columbus attest. Christian mis- 
sionaries hasten with messages of God's love 
to every known land, and Christian preach- 
ers, teachers, physicians, engineers, and 
other workers fill all lands with tokens of 
Christ's uplifting power. 

The Christian emphasis today is largely 
social. Christian business men, as never 
before in history, are insisting upon " the 
square deal " because all men are brothers. 
Christians are found everywhere working 
in causes of social uplift — temperance, sani- 

[68] 



Cbci0t 

tation, good housing, fair wages, adequate 
hospitals, good schools, ample parks and 
playgrounds, healthful recreations, social 
purity, and worthful life for all. 

One only needs to compare ours with 
other civilizations to realize that ours is 
Christian, leavened with the spirit of Christ, 
and that a power from Christ, working in 
the hearts of men, is the dynamic which 
holds it up and pushes it forward. 

Christ Judges Men 

Every one is fairly judged by his attitude 
to Christ. " He that rejecteth me," says 
Christ, " and receiveth not my words, hath 
one that judgeth him: the word that I have 
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last 
day" (John 12 : 48). When one looks at 
a masterpiece and calls it a chromo, he is 
condemned as not being an artist. When 
one looks at the character of Christ — its 
beauty, symmetry, justice, sympathy, for- 
giveness, righteousness, love, heroism, self- 
giving, and willingness to suffer and die for 
men — his judgment of that character, his 
attitude toward it, and his relations with it, 
weigh him and judge him. 

[69] 



^be }£60enttal0 ot Cbtidtianit^ 

To choose Christ is to choose the highest 
life, to require of one's self heroism to fight 
against sin both in self and society; and 
to associate with Qirist is to seek inspira- 
tion and strength for the struggle. It is 
said that " the good is the enemy of the 
best," and it is true. To choose Christ is to 
choose the best, to live with the best, to 
work for the best. Looking at Christ, one 
squarely faces a great challenge — whether 
with Christ he will choose his own best, or 
without Christ fall short of it. 

It should be emphasized here, even at the 
risk of repetition, that to choose Christ is 
not to accept some theological formulas 
about Christ. Christ is a person, alive from 
the dead, eager to be friend and companion 
to every one of us, and to endue us with 
spiritual power as we join purposes with 
him and exert ourselves to supply the 
world's spiritual needs. 

The writer will never forget the years of 
struggle during which he sought to work 
out a satisfactory theory of the atonement 
of Christ, and the failure accompanying 
the attempt. It was like a burst of sun- 
shine through the clouds when an aged min- 
isterial friend said simply : " You do not 

[70] 



Qbxiet 

have to have any theory of the atonement. 
Christ is a person. Deal with him per- 
sonally, not with theories about him," 

Christ is not our Saviour because we be- 
lieve in him as Saviour, but because of what 
he works in us when we make him friend, 
companion, may I not say, chum. The 
things of supreme value for life are facts, 
not theories ; persons, not philosophies. A 
friend of the author's undertook to per- 
suade a man that Jesus was Saviour by 
piloting' him through the whole body of 
" Christian Evidences " as they were em- 
bodied in books years ago. When they had 
finished, my friend inquired, '' Are you 
convinced? " " Yes," replied the man, " but 
I am no different." One may accept with- 
out question all theologies about Christ 
without having Christ as a power in his 
life ; and one may know nothing about the- 
ologies, and care less for them, and have 
Christ in his life a continuous revelation, a 
growing power, and an increasing joy, if 
only he will make Christ his friend and 
companion, and be true to him as such. 
"Follow me," Christ commands. If we 
obey, he becomes to us the bread of life, 
the water of life, the light of life, the way 

[71] 



^be Bddcntiale of Cbcietianttis 

of life, the truth of Hfe, the life itself. 
Gradually and increasingly there comes to 
us through him revelation of what God is, 
revelation of ourselves, revelation of the 
eternal principles which bind God and man 
together, which transform men into the di- 
vine image, and which, through the long 
centuries, produce the growing union of 
man with God and men with men. 

Then fiercely we dig the fountain, 

Oh! where do the waters rise? 
Then, panting, we dimb the mountain, 

Oh! are there indeed blue skies? 
And we dig till the soul is weary, 

Nor find the waters out, 
And we climb till all is dreary, 

And still the sky is a doubt. 

Search not the roots of the fountain, 

But drink the waters bright ; 
Gaze far above the mountain, 

The sky may speak in light — 
But if yet thou see no beauty, 

If, widowed, thy heart still cries, 
With thy hands go do thy duty, 

And thy work will clear thine eyes. 

— George Macdonald. 



[72] 



HID 
jevolution 



EVOLUTION 



THE study of biological evolution is apt 
to disturb for a time the religious ideas 
of young people in colleges and universities. 
That the facts of modern science conflict 
with medieval religious ideas, goes without 
saying. They equally conflict with medieval 
scientific beliefs. But between the facts 
of modern science and the best religious 
thought of our day there is no conflict, but 
instead a marvelous and significant har- 
mony. It would be difficult to find a single 
prominent Christian scholar today who does 
not believe in the theory of evolution. The 
conflict which the young imagine to exist 
between this theory and religion arises out 
of mistaken notions of both science and 
religion. Among these mistaken notions 
are the following: 

I. People sometimes speak of evolution 
as though it were sufficient unto itself, 
an energizing force which develops life 
from lower to higher stages. Just as any 

[75] 



tlbc :600entialg of Cbrietianlts 

law in and of itself does nothing, but tells 
how some force operates, so evolution in 
and of itself does nothing, but is descriptive 
of the way in which force works. Back of 
all phases of the theory of evolution is the 
question, What is the force at work? The 
Christian evolutionist says it is God. God 
creates, and is ever creating. From the 
first life cell, and before, to the highest man 
in the most complex society, God is ener- 
gizing. Nothing is apart from him. Laws 
and methods and theories simply tell, or at- 
tempt to tell, how he works. God is not an 
absentee landlord, but an indwelling energy 
in the physical universe, an unfolding power 
in biological creation, and an indwelling and 
guiding Spirit in man and society. " In 
him we live, and move, and have our be- 
ing" (Acts 17 : 28). 

2. This erroneous idea, that evolution 
is a force instead of the description of the 
working of a force, is sometimes carried to 
the extreme- of assuming that physical and 
biological forces are sufficient to account for 
social phenomena. But no well-informed 
scientist today thinks of accounting for so- 
cial phenomena, and social and spiritual 
progress, simply by the operation of phys- 

[76] 



levolutfon 

ical and biological forces. Into the process, 
even of biological evolution, new and inex- 
plicable forces keep entering — forces which 
separate species and mark off eras. All that 
goes before new species cannot account for 
them. The less never accounts for the 
greater ; nor the lower for the higher. The 
oyster cannot account for the fish, nor the 
fish for the amphibian, nor the amphibian 
for the bird, nor the bird for the mammal, 
nor all lower animals for man. 

Into social evolution also new forces 
enter: Mind controls, love is powerful, 
ethical ideas grip, great ideals lift, and God 
comes increasingly into conscious relations 
with men. 

Instead of there being some so-called 
evolutionary force that is unfolding all 
things, we are living in a continuous proc- 
ess of creation. New forces enter every 
now and then to change the direction of 
progress and lift life to a higher plane. 
The Spirit of the eternal God fairly throbs 
and thrills through the whole process. 

Why is it that a nation like the United 
States, for years in the grip of commer- 
cialism, and, as some think, money-mad, 
)yith its young men dominated by ambition 

177] 



Cbe £d0cntial0 ot Cbtiatianitis 

for success, suddenly took up arms, poured 
out treasure, and laid down life in the world 
war for an ideal — the ideal that every na- 
tion, no matter how small or weak, has a 
right to work out its highest possibilities 
in its own place unmolested, and that right, 
not might, must rule the world ? What had 
come over our young men that, with tear- 
dimmed eyes as they left home and friends, 
they said, as some of them said to the 
writer : " I want to do something for my 
country ; " " Unless I have part in the war, 
I would not want to live after the war ; " 
" They may bury me on the hills of France, 
but if so I shall feel that my life has been 
well spent"? Why did the boys in the 
trenches get next to God as never before, 
pray the thing through at night, and in 
the morning, with victory in their hearts, 
go into the drive singing, deeming it worth 
while to die if need be to help those who 
should live after them to realize an ideal? 
Why? God was moving upon men in a 
new way, turning life in a nobler direction, 
and lifting it to a higher stage of manliness. 
The same God who has worked in the 
whole life process from the beginning was 
working in new ways. Men today are in 

[78] 



Evolution 

the grip of world ideas, and humanitarian 
feelings of unprecedented breadth and depth 
are moving them to action. God is creat- 
ing a new social order. 

3. Another erroneous notion is that evo- 
lution is wholly a gradual process. It is, 
indeed, largely gradual ; and yet the whole 
course of evolution is marked by occasional, 
and somewhat frequent sudden changes, 
new outbursts of power, new directions of 
life. These sudden leaps — mutations, some 
of them have been called — are inexplicable. 

Perhaps the simplest analogy to these 
sudden changes is found in the individual, 
who is thought by many to recapitulate in a 
rough way the life history of the race. Not 
to mention prior changes, human birth is a 
sudden break in the prenatal life. After 
the event new powers unfold, and the in- 
dividual enters into new relations. The age 
of puberty again brings sudden changes, 
both physical and mental, and after these 
changes a new era in life begins. In the 
individual's spiritual life, conversion marks 
the end of an old era and the beginning of 
a new one. Christ calls it a new birth. So 
marked is it with most people that, as Paul 
says, one is " a new creature : old things are 

[79] 



TTbe }&00entia[d of Cbciatiantti? 

passed away ; behold, all things are become 
new" (2 Cor. 5 : 17). Life assumes a 
new attitude, experiences a new joy, finds 
a new love, becomes possessed of a new 
faith, is moved by a new purpose, enlists 
in a new service. In a word, a new force 
has entered the individual, which starts into 
new and vigorous growth elements of life 
before latent, and guides the life in a new 
and higher direction. 

Analogous to these comparatively sudden 
changes in individual evolution, are the 
more or less sudden changes in the unfold- 
ing of life as a whole. Biological species 
show innumerable inexplicable changes ; be- 
tween species there are great and sudden 
leaps; and there is a wide, unbridged gulf 
between the highest animal and the lowest 
man. 

Social evolution also is filled with sud- 
den outbursts of new life and sudden mani- 
festations of new power. The most marked 
one in history is the advent of Christ. His 
advent began a new era and changed the 
course of human development. It filled 
men with new hopes, new purposes, new 
faith, new love, new courage, new al- 
legiance, new devotion, and a new spirit of 

[80] 



Bvolution 

self-giving. It began the development of 
a new humanitarianism, which found ex- 
pression in a new valuation of the indi- 
vidual, more humanitarian laws, more be- 
neficent institutions, juster government, 
more equitable trade relations — in a word, 
in a higher and finer humanity. 

Less great and sudden changes appear in 
the barbarian invasion of Italy, which over- 
threw the Roman empire; in the Crusades, 
the Reformation, and the Renaissance. The 
world war will doubtless prove to be the 
most significant sudden historic event since 
Christ. It is the bursting forth of new 
life; it will mark ofif more or less dis- 
tinctly a new era; it will change the direc- 
tion of human thought and endeavor, es- 
pecially in those spheres of life which make 
for social betterment and have to do directly 
with the building of the kingdom of God 
on earth. Now that the war is over every 
one expects the world to be different. It 
will be better than before, for the processes 
of social evolution lead upward. The mind 
of man is travailing in a new birth. It is 
coming to a keener appreciation of the 
rights of even the weakest man and nation, 
to a new discernment of the things that are 

F [ 8l ] 



^be £00ential0 of Cbtistianiti? 

most worth while, to a new resolve for 
brotherly conduct in the whole of life, to 
a growing sense of the presence, power, and 
working of God in the individual and in 
history, and to a growing appreciation of 
the things that God values. 

4. Another wrong notion about evolution 
arises from the fact that students, after a 
smattering of biological evolution, leap to 
the conclusion that biological methods of 
evolution — differentiation, selection, propa- 
gation, adaptation, struggle for existence, 
survival of the fittest — continue to be the 
methods of social evolution. The facts are 
otherwise, or perhaps more accurately, these 
principles of evolution must be differently 
interpreted or applied when we enter the 
field of social evolution. 

Professor Drummond, in his " Ascent of 
Man," showed that the human struggle for 
existence was not for self, as is largely true 
in biological evolution, but increasingly for 
others; and history corroborates his show- 
ing. The United States went to war with 
Spain, not in a struggle for self, but for 
Cuba. In the world war, while the United 
States apprehended a possible future danger 
from Germany, that future possibility alone 

[82] 



Brolution 

would not have led us to take up arms when 
we did. Our impelling motive was a sense 
of duty to contribute our part in the win- 
ning of liberty and democracy for all peo- 
ples. We entered the struggle, not for self, 
but for the larger life of humanity. 

The great difference between biological 
and social evolution is that the former is 
primarily an evolution of physical life as 
expressed in physical forms — the bodies of 
genera and species of animals ; whereas the 
latter is the evolution of psychic life as ex- 
pressed in social forms — governments, cus- 
toms, laws, institutions, etc. The strata of 
human history are as filled with fossil social 
institutions as are the geologic strata with 
the remains of fossil animals. 

Let it be noted that biological evolution 
reached its goal in the production of the 
human body. There are no human genera 
or species. Whether we go back to the 
earliest human remains or examine all liv- 
ing races, no divergencies of human forms 
are found sufficient for a basis of different 
species, much less genera. 

With the advent of man, and the perfec- 
tion of the physical form, the goal of evo- 
lution is lifted higher, and its methods be- 

[ 83 ] 



^be JSddentiald of Cbristianiti^ 

come different. Human progress is not in 
being molded by environment, as was largely 
the case with animal progress, but in psychic 
mastery of environment — in cultivating 
land, building cities, making the world 
smaller by rapid communication, and in ad- 
justing human relations to these new en- 
vironing conditions. 

Why the biological organism varies in 
certain directions rather than others, is not 
known. No more is it known why the so- 
cial mind grows in certain directions, ever 
making demands upon itself for new ad- 
justments — more brotherhood, more sym- 
pathy, more justice, more cooperation, more 
service; except that the social mind, plant- 
like, grows toward the light, toward the 
Christ, " the light of the world." 

In social evolution, as indicated above, 
if biological laws continue to operate, they 
must be differently applied. For example, 
the " fittest " in the " struggle for exis- 
tence " are no longer the strongest phys- 
ically, but the best ; not those who fight, but 
those who cooperate; not those who hate 
their enemies, but those who love them ; not 
those who exploit their fellows, but those 
who serve them. Events, of course, often 

[84] 



Bvolutfon 

seem to indicate the contrary, but they do 
not. Christ seemed to go down in defeat 
when he was crucified, but his crucifiers are 
forgotten, the world has repudiated their 
principles, and the crucified Christ has con- 
quered the human heart and is leavening 
the laws of nations increasingly with his 
spirit. Not the strong, but the best survive. 
The application here, of course, is not to 
individuals, nor even to races of men, but 
to those higher qualities of life for which 
men are willing to die, and which get them- 
selves embodied in human convictions, laws, 
governments, and institutions. These are 
propagated century after century ; they con- 
tinue because they are fittest to continue. 
The Romans thought they were making an 
end of the Christians when they threw 
them to the lions. The Romans were phys- 
ically strong and the Christians physically 
weak. But " the blood of the martyrs was 
the seed of the church." The Christians 
were really the strong, for they embodied 
those principles which human institutions 
needed, and which the heart of man would 
not let die. The Roman Government has 
perished; Christian principles live on with 
more and more abundant life. 

[8s] 



tbc :£05cntiald of Cbridtianit^ 

In social evolution, then, the struggle is 
not between individuals and species as in 
biological evolution, and the fittest to sur- 
vive are not the strongest. The struggle is 
one between social institutions, between or- 
ganized phases of the social mind; and the 
best institutions, that is, those best adapted 
to serve human needs, survive. For ex- 
ample, the Christian church has become dif- 
ferentiated into many branches, each with 
its particular creed and forms of worship. 
These differing creeds and forms of wor- 
ship contend for the mastery. Those best 
adapted to human needs are selected out by 
the sifting years. They propagate them- 
selves for longer or shorter time. They 
are constantly face to face with the prob- 
lem of adaptation to the needs of men. 
Those that adjust themselves to human 
needs survive; those that fail to adjust 
themselves perish. 

The same facts are true of all social in- 
stitutions. England, in the treatment of 
her colonies, is an outstanding example of 
governmental adjustment to growing po- 
litical, economic, and social needs. Spain, 
in the treatment of her colonies, is an ex- 
ample of precisely the opposite sort. En- 

[86] 



^Evolution 

gland, therefore, has been growing strong 
while Spain has been growing weak. 

The Germans in the world war chal- 
lenged the fundamental fact of social evo- 
lution — that it is the upward progress of 
mankind and not simply the survival of 
brute force. The struggle was between 
autocracy and democracy as political insti- 
tutions, between force and right as princi- 
ples of government, and between material- 
ism and idealism as philosophies of life. 
The fittest survived. For two thousand 
years the social mind has been growing 
toward democracy, and autocracy was 
doomed. Even had the Allies been beaten, 
it was doomed in time, doomed as those 
who crucified Christ were doomed, and as 
those who threw the Christians to the lions 
were doomed. Not the strongest, but the 
best, whether strong or weak, survive. The 
nation that does not adjust itself to this 
principle of social growth will perish. This 
dictum is written in history. It is the fiat 
of the social life process. 

Not only is there no conflict between the 
scientific theory of evolution and modern 
Christian thought, but the theory has helped 
to amplify and broaden Christian thought, 

[87] 



Zbc J6d6ential6 of Cbridtianitg 

and to bring the thinking of Christians 
nearer to the teachings of Christ. As all 
are aware, each field of knowledge in- 
fluences every other field. Science in- 
fluences philosophy, and philosophy science ; 
religion influences government, and govern- 
ment religion, and so on. A clear illustra- 
tion, for example, of the influence of gov- 
ernment on religion lies in the historic fact 
that governmental forms have been power- 
ful in molding men's ideas of God. In the 
Old Testament ages, when war was the 
business of nations, God was thought of 
as a god of war, as approving the spoils of 
war, and as sanctioning cruelties against 
heathen nations. Calvin developed his 
stern doctrine of God's sovereignty in days 
of kingly rule. In our democratic era, 
when there is a goodly infusion of broth- 
erly love in social relations, and class dis- 
tinctions are breaking down, and there is 
more of the " square deal " in business, 
we are able to understand and appreciate 
the teachings of Christ, that God is a 
Father. In strong contrast with the idea 
of God developed under democracy was the 
German idea of God developed under an 
overbearing and dominating autocracy — a 

[88] 



Evolution 

god who cared for Germans as he did not 
care for others, who looked with favor upon 
the rule of physical might, who led on in 
ruthless warfare — the " German Gott." 
Thus governmental ideas greatly affect re- 
ligious ideas. 

In like manner the theory of evolution 
has greatly influenced religious thinking. 
Its special contribution is the emphasis it 
places on the element of time in God's 
working. The theory allows eons of time 
for physical evolution before life appears on 
the planet; and eons of time for biological 
evolution before man appears; and un- 
counted centuries — from man's first appear- 
ance to the present — for social evolution. 
God is not in a hurry. With him " a thou- 
sand years are as one day and one day as 
a thousand years." Thus the long-time em- 
phasis enables us to enlarge and extend our 
conception of the whole process of God's 
working and bring it into conformity with 
the teachings of Christ. The following par- 
ticulars may be noted: 

I. Early Christians expected Christ to 
come again suddenly, bring all mundane af- 
fairs to an end, and take them home to 
glory. Christ, on the contrary, taught that 

[89] 



Zbc je00ential0 of Cbridtianitis 

God's processes were those of the mustard- 
seed and the pervading leaven — gradual 
processes. The theory of evolution has so 
familiarized our thought with the element 
of time in Godis working that we can now 
understand and apply Christ's teachings. 
We see God working in the star-dust and 
in the first cell. He lifts life up species by 
species, unfolding new powers at every step, 
and opening the way to larger possibilities. 
He leads man forth from the rest of his 
creatures, new, different, higher. At every 
step of social development God energizes. 
His Spirit is in man, and works through 
man, increasingly conforming man's 
thought, desires, and endeavors to his will. 
The unfolding of life is a long, gradual, 
upward process; it is still going forward; 
and men, as Paul taught, are workers to- 
gether with God in the task, 

2. Familiarity with the time element in 
God's working, has filled us with hope for 
society and courage for sacrificial work. 
Men no longer despair of saving society 
and abandon social tasks, as once they did, 
for hermit cells. They realize that social 
tasks are long, hard tasks, requiring pa- 
tience, faith, and continuous work. The 

[90] 



jevouttiott 

time element has taught us that great evils 
are to be banished from the social order one 
by one. It has given new confidence in the 
certainty of the upward trend of civilization 
under the vitalizing power of Christ. It 
has led us to appreciation of the far-reach- 
ing influence of every forceful personality 
and every human endeavor as we work 
with Christ in redeeming the world. 

3. Familiarity with the time element has 
brought the " kingdom of God " down out 
of heaven, where the early Christians placed 
it, to be upon the earth, where Christ placed 
it. As before indicated, the early Christians 
looked for a sudden ending of the world, 
and the establishment of the kingdom of 
God in heaven. This conception obtained 
for long centuries, and is not yet extinct, 
although increasing numbers of Christians 
are emphasizing the kingdom of God on 
earth, where Christ came to set it up. Men 
are now busy working and fighting and 
legislating to get men here on earth to do 
God's will, the doing of which is God's 
kingdom. We call ours a social century, 
for we have gripped the social task in ear- 
nest. The emphasis of governments today 
is upon right social relationships, and the 

[91] 



Ube £d0ential6 ot Cbctdtianiti? 

emphasis of religion is upon Christian ethics 
and service. This means, not simply salva- 
tion hereafter, but righteous living here. It 
means righteous fathers and mothers, right- 
eous homes, righteous teachers, righteous 
pupils, righteous business men, righteous 
politicians, righteous governments, right- 
eous international relations, righteous work, 
and righteous pleasures. It means that ulti- 
mately prophetic visions are to be realized, 
when " holiness to the Lord " will be en- 
graved on the bridles of our horses, 
blazoned in large signs over our homes and 
stores, and set as mottoes in our factories 
and government buildings. Or, if we 
change the prophetic pictures to Christ's 
teaching, the leaven of righteousness is to 
pervade the whole lump of human relation- 
ships. 

Not until the theory of evolution sug- 
gested the time element and called atten- 
tion to the long, gradual process of social 
uplift, did men in large numbers abandon 
the ideas of a sudden cataclasmic ending of 
all mundane things, as suggested by the 
literal interpretation of the pictorial lan- 
guage of Scripture, and adequately devote 
themselves to the makino: of a better world. 



*t> 



[92] 



Bvolution 

The social process, then, as conceived 
under the theory of evolution, is not only in 
harmony with Qirist's teachings, but throws 
a flood of light upon them. Christ is not 
apart from, but a constituent factor in, that 
continuous working of God which operates 
from the first dawn of life, and before it; 
which unfolds life from lower to higher 
stages until the fulness of his thought, pur- 
pose, and love are realized in his creation. 
Now it is clear that the kingdom of God be- 
gins in the small — the mustard-seed — and, 
by a process of growth, fills the world ; that, 
in the process, the wheat and tares grow 
together; that those who work for right- 
eousness are not to fear or waver when the 
forces of evil seem triumphant ; that Christ, 
when lifted up, will draw all men to him- 
self; that the kingdoms of this world will 
become the " kingdom of our Lord and of 
his Christ." In a word, the theory of evo- 
lution, by emphasizing the time element, has 
greatly enlarged what men formerly con- 
ceived to be Christ's work, and has enabled 
men in fuller measure to grasp Christ's real 
program of redeeming the world. There 
is no halting ; there can be no turning back ; 
defeat is impossible. 

[93] 



ID 
^be Stt>le 



THE BIBLE 



THE Old Testament was produced dur- 
ing about one thousand five hundred 
years, roughly speaking, from about 2000 
B. C. to about 500 B. C, or from Abraham 
to Nehemiah. For perhaps half of this 
period the early materials were passed down 
from generation to generation in the form 
of traditions or separately written narra- 
tives. Sometimes there were different ver- 
sions of these narratives, which varied some- 
what in style and contents. In the later 
years of the period these different versions 
were woven together into about the form 
which they now bear. The fathers of Is- 
rael were commanded to narrate to their 
children the stories of God's dealings with 
them, and thus to pass them on from gen- 
eration to generation. (See Exod. 10 : 2; 
Josh. 4 : 5-7.) 

From about the ninth century B. C. 
the Bible narratives began to be wrought 
over by the prophetic spirits of Israel. The 

G [97] 



Zbc iSeecntiaie of Cbrietianiti? 

materials chosen, and the form into which 
they were put, depended on the situation of 
the people and the needs of the hour, just 
as the materials chosen for a sermon depend 
upon the character and needs of the con- 
gregation. 

During the later centuries of the period 
named the situation of the Hebrews varied 
greatly ; their spiritual needs differed at dif- 
ferent times; and consequently the Bible 
writings vary greatly in nature and con- 
tent. Through them we learn of Israel's 
shepherd life, her enslavement in Egypt, 
her wanderings in the wilderness, her con- 
quest of Canaan, her successes and defeats 
in war, her faithfulness and unfaithfulness 
to Jehovah, her national prosperity and ad- 
versity, her captivity in Assyria and Bab- 
ylonia, and finally the return of a faithful 
few to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple 
and to reestablish the national life of the 
people. 

The contents of the Old Testament were 
produced out of these varying conditions, 
and by men of various types and accom- 
plishments — ^by prophets, poets, biog- 
raphers, historians, law-givers, priests, 
philosophers, dramatists, and others. 

[98] 



(Tbc Xiblc 

Needless to say, then, the Old Testament 
is not a book, but a library of many books, 
which vary greatly in character and con- 
tents. Noah and the Flood, is a good ex- 
ample of tradition; Jonah and the Whale, 
is evidently a great story; the accounts of 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are bio- 
graphic sketches; the books of Kings and 
Chronicles are brief, selected history; 
Nathan's rebuke of David for taking 
Uriah's wife, is in the form of parable 
(2 Sam. 12 : 1-14), which was Qirist's 
favorite method of teaching ; the Psalms, of 
course, are poetry, and other portions are 
in poetic form; Jotham's rebuke of his 
brethren is in the form of allegory, in 
which trees speak (Judg, 9 : 7-15) ; much 
of the ethical teaching of the Bible is in the 
form of prophecy, such, for example, as 
the books of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jere- 
miah; Job is a drama dealing with one of 
the profoundest problems of life; Leviticus 
and Deuteronomy are made up largely of 
laws; and Proverbs is a collection of 
maxims, called by modern scholars " wis- 
dom literature." 

It is of utmost importance to note care- 
fully that the Old Testament is composed 

[99] 



^be Bddentiald of Cbtistianitis 

of these different kinds of literature — 
tradition, story, history, biography, para- 
ble, poetry, allegory, prophecy, drama, 
maxims, etc. — for it is not always clear 
which of these kinds of literature certain 
portions of the Bible contain. For exam- 
ple, men differ widely in their ideas of the 
literature which narrates the accounts of 
the Creation, the Temptation of Adam and 
Eve, the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, the 
Flood, and other portions, some holding that 
they are literal history, others that they are 
traditions, and still others that they are 
poetical writings. 

The Bible Stands Secure 

These differing kinds of literature, and 
these differing views, should not disturb us 
in the least, for they in no way invalidate 
our Bible. God makes his will known by 
different means. He inspires men to utter 
truth through poetry and story as well as 
through history and prophecy. His revela- 
tion is found in parable as well as in biog- 
raphy. 

The one question of importance is : What 
does the Bible teach? Any part of the 

[lOO] 



Bible that does not hold a spiritual mes- 
sage, or is not necessary to make clear some 
part that does hold a spiritual message, may 
well be discarded. It has no spiritual value 
and does not belong in the Bible. For pur- 
poses of illustration we may note the fol- 
lowing examples : 

1. Does not the Creation Story teach that 
one God, not idols, created the world and 
all that is in it? Does it not teach that one 
God created man and breathed into him 
the divine life? These truths are basal for 
all religious thinking. It does not matter 
in the least whether they are uttered 
through history, parable, story, drama, pic- 
torial narrative, or any other kind of litera- 
ture. The whole point is to get the truth 
uttered clearly, briefly, interestingly, and 
powerfully. It is an evident abuse of the 
Bible, and an utter misconception of its 
fundamental purpose, to bring questions of 
science into the Creation Story. The Bible 
does not teach science, evidently has no in- 
tention of doing so, and in that fact the 
wisdom of the Scriptures is manifest. The 
Bible is a revelation of spiritual truth. 

2. Does the account of the Temptation 
of Adam and Eve need to be history in 

[lOl] 



Zbc :£6dential6 ot Cbcietianiti? 

order to teach spiritual truth? The account 
sets forth ( i ) that man Hves in a garden, 
in which some trees are forbidden and 
others are not, (2) that man by free choice 
may take the way of life or the way of 
death, (3) that man is beset on one side 
by the voice of God calling him in the way 
of life, and on the other by a voice which 
strives, by deception, and by casting dis- 
credit on God, to lead him in the way of 
death, (4) that the ways of disobedience 
are often pleasant to the eyes and enticing 
to the imagination, (5) that we do not sin 
alone but are tempted by each other, (6) 
that, notwithstanding all excuses, there is 
no good reason for disobeying God, (7) that 
God does not take excuses, but punishes 
sinners, (8) that the disobedient are shut 
out of life's real garden, (9) that, notwith- 
standing man's disobedience, God still loves 
him (he clothes Adam and Eve with skins), 
(10) that, though man has fallen into sin, 
there is still hope of attaining righteousness 
(the seed of the woman is to bruise the 
serpent's head). 

Every one of these ten truths is funda- 
mental for spiritual life. The marvel is 
that they could be so simply, tersely told. 

[ 102 ] 



tTbe :ilSible 

3. The short Story of Cain and Abel 
makes clear the great truths (i) that God 
is not placated by sacrifices offered by sin- 
ful men, and (2) that righteousness must 
be conjoined with worship. It must be re- 
membered that these truths were uttered 
when heathen cults did not connect right- 
eousness with worship. 

4. The Story of the Flood indicates 
God's attitude to righteous and wicked and 
shows the respective ends to which each 
comes : the righteous are saved ; the wicked 
are lost. 

5. The Story of the Tower of Babel 
shows 'the folly of men presuming to go 
on their own ways in life without consult- 
ing God. 

This series of stories evidently constitutes 
a brief introduction to the Bible, and the 
writer holds in mind the problems and na- 
tional sins that are met with in Israel's 
history. The great truths uttered consti- 
tute the foundation of all right religious 
thinking. It is significant of the c)iarac- 
ter of the Bible that they are uttered so 
concisely and clearly in its first chapters.^ 

'^ For a fuller discussion of these narratives see the 
author's " Bible Message for Modem Manhood," Chap. 
I-IV. 

[ 103 ] 



^be iBeecntiale of Cbridtianit^ 

Difficulties with the Bible 

I. One difficulty that we encounter with 
the Bible is that heretofore certain parts 
have been regarded as literal history which 
we find difficult to accept as literal. The 
early Genesis stories just reviewed, are a 
good example. 

It has already been sufficiently shown 
that the spiritual value of such parts of the 
Bible does not depend upon their being lit- 
eral history any more than does the spiritual 
value of the Psalms or of the parables of 
our Lord. Indeed, history is not so direct 
and effective a medium of teaching as para- 
ble and story. In the latter everything is 
freely shaped for the teaching purpose, 
while in the former the trammels of his- 
toric fact are ever upon the teacher. It 
is well known by all scholars that the his- 
tory contained in the Bible is selected, sifted, 
and somewhat idealized for teaching pur- 
poses. 

The author once heard an able sermon 
from the text, " The bush was not con- 
sumed," the incident being that of Moses 
before the burning bush in the wilderness 
of Sinai. The emphasis of the sermon was 

[ 104 ] 



^be Mblc 

upon the reality of the supernatural. Some 
young men of the author's acquaintance who 
heard the sermon, were not persuaded of 
the supernaturalness of the event, and con- 
sequently received little or no help from the 
sermon. 

With the supernaturalness of the burning 
bush the author had never experienced any 
difficulty; but the fact that the young men 
were unpersuaded, led him to inquire : 
Could this incident of the burning bush be 
a pictorial scene, a strong setting of the 
soul conflict of Moses? If so. What is the 
prophet teaching through it? Analysis of 
the situation shows : 

( 1 ) That Moses was confronting the call 
of God to go and deliver Israel from Egyp- 
tian bondage, just as every Christian young 
man sooner or later confronts the call of 
God — sometimes a great and crucial call — 
to a life-work. 

(2) The surprise of the situation was 
that " the bush was not consumed." Moses 
expected it to be consumed, just as he ex- 
pected his life to be consumed, worn out, 
spent for naught, if he followed God's call 
to deliver Israel; and just as every young 
man expects his life to be consumed — riches 

[105] 



Zbc Bdeentiald of Cbil0tianit)g 

given up, worldly success relinquished, place 
and power and honorable position all thrown 
overboard — if he follows God's call, it may 
be into the ministry or to the foreign field. 

But in Moses' life, as in the bush, there 
was not a consuming, but an increasing. 
He came to power, honor, and fame by fol- 
lowing God's call, whereas he expected to 
be robbed of all these. If he followed the 
call he expected the heart to go out of life, 
whereas, on the contrary, a service was 
rendered which put heart into life. Had 
Moses refused the call, his life would have 
been consumed in the wilderness without 
the world hearing of him. Because he fol- 
lowed the call, he is above all others the 
law-giver of the race. The bush of his life 
was not consumed. Neither will the bush 
of any man's life be consumed who follows 
God's call. 

(3) On the other hand, out of the bush 
came the revelation of God — the voice say- 
ing, *' I am the God of thy father, the God 
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob." Out of the bush came the great 
challenge to Moses' faith : " Come now 
therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, 
that thou mayest bring forth my people the 

[ 106 ] 



Ubc JSible 

children of Israel out of Egypt. . . Cer- 
tainly I will be with thee ; and ... ye shall 
serve God upon this mountain." (See Exod. 

3.) 

Moses believed God, he accepted the 

challenge, and the revelation of the bush 
was reproduced in his life and work. By 
following God's call and doing God's work, 
he became increasingly sure that the God 
of his fathers had spoken to him, was lead- 
ing him and working through him. A like 
assurance of the certainty of God, of the 
verity of his call, and of his cooperation in 
work, comes to every one who obeys him 
and runs the risk of his life being consumed. 
The bush was not consumed; neither will 
the life be consumed. The bush was a 
revelation ; so will be the life. 

(4) As Moses stands before the burn- 
ing bush, he is commanded, " Put off thy 
shoes from off thy feet, for the place where- 
on thou standest is holy ground" (Exod. 
3:5). No place is holier to any man than 
the place where God meets him face to 
face, and challenges him to meet, by accep- 
tance or refusal, his definite call to a life- 
work. 

Surely these four great truths are clearly 

[ 107] 



Uhc Bssentiale ot Cbristianiti? 

taught in the narrative as it stands, what- 
ever be its character as literature. What 
more could it teach? These were the per- 
tinent and vital truths for Moses as he 
faced God's call. They are the vital truths 
for every one under like circumstances. 

Other portions of Scripture, such for 
example, as the book of Jonah, might be 
dealt with in similar fashion; but enough 
has already been said to make clear the 
importance of placing the spiritual teach- 
ings of the Bible first, and regarding all 
other questions of secondary importance. 

2. Young people often think that some- 
thing is wrong with their religious lives be- 
cause they do not find all portions of the 
Bible equally interesting. All parts of the 
Bible are neither of equal interest nor of 
equal spiritual value. This fact should be 
clearly understood and definitely stated. 
For example, laws of tabernacle, temple, and 
sacrifices, belong to forms and customs in 
which we now have little interest. The 
records of the wars of Israel neither inter- 
est nor profit us much. Many of the 
prophecies refer to situations long past and 
little known, so that many references in 
them are obscure. This is not to say that 

[ io8 ] 



such portions of Scripture are not of inter- 
est to scholars. They are of great interest, 
and also of great profit, for they throw 
light upon past social institutions and cus- 
toms, and also upon the development of 
religion. 

3. Perhaps the young person's greatest 
difficulty with the Old Testament is found 
in the ethics which it sanctions, and which 
are so contrary to the ethics of Christ and 
of the present day. 

The Old Testament sanctions polygamy, 
concubinage, slavery, and the savage slaugh- 
ter of men, women, children, and animals 
in war. It sanctions religious persecution, 
as when Elijah kills the four hundred 
prophets of Baal. The problem is to re- 
gard a book which sanctions such ethics as 
the revelation of God ; but the difficulty will 
disappear when a few things are under- 
stood : 

(i) Christ plainly teaches that the Old 
Testament is partial and imperfect. No 
one could claim that it is anything else. " Ye 
have heard that it hath been said," says 
Christ, " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for 
a tooth; but I say unto you, that ye resist 
not evil " (Matt. 5 : 38, 39). Christ speaks 

[109] 



^be Besentiald of Cbristianitig 

in similar fashion of loving neighbors and 
hating enemies : he bids us love our ene- 
mies. (Matt. 5 : 43, 44.) He said that 
Moses gave certain laws of divorce on ac- 
count of the hardness of men's hearts. 
(Matt. 19 : 8.) It was the best that Moses 
could do at the time, for it was the best 
that the people could receive. Christ de- 
clares himself to be the fulfilment of the 
law. Not until he came do we have God's 
perfect revelation. All that went before 
him was partial. Even God's revelation 
to us in Christ is progressive, for we only 
gradually understand Christ. To his dis- 
ciples Christ said that he had many things 
to reveal, but that they could not receive 
them, and that the Holy Spirit would pro- 
gressively reveal them. (John 16 : 12.) 

(2) That God's revelation to man is 
gradual and progressive cannot be over- 
emphasized in this connection, for it makes 
clear the fact that the ethics of the Old 
Testament could not be other than partial, 
and that there is necessarily a great dis- 
parity between Old Testament ethics and 
our own. 

The situation will be made clear by think- 
ing of a child in the kindergarten. The 

[no] 



ZTbe mhlc 

teacher does not teach him college subjects, 
not because she is unable to do so, but be- 
cause the child is unable to understand. A 
child of ten is not taught philosophy; its 
mind is not sufficiently mature to receive it. 
And just as the individual must grow up 
to the comprehension of certain things, so 
must a people, and so must the race. We 
speak of reformers as being ahead of their 
times, meaning that the people are not suf- 
ficiently advanced to understand and appre- 
ciate them. It is important to note that 
there is a certain necessary order in human 
progress. For example, it would be wholly 
beside the mark to discuss the justice of a 
wage scale while men were still in slavery, 
or conditions of peace while nations were 
hot for war, or human ethics before men 
had formed an idea of the character of 
God. 

Christ came in the " fulness of time," that 
is, when the race, or at least a portion of it, 
had been brought up to the point where 
Christ could make a beginning of his higher 
revelation. 

Let us then not seek to justify the ethics 
of the Old Testament, but frankly admit 
that the heroes of faith in Old Testament 

[iir] 



dbe Bd6entiald of Cbristianit^ 

times thought that many things were right 
which Christ condemned, and which would 
be wrong today. 

(3) We come now upon what is perhaps 
our greatest difficulty, viz., Did God ac- 
tually tell the people to do things which to 
us would be wrong? To illustrate this 
point there are no better cases than those 
already used in another connection — the 
cases of Elijah and Samuel. Did God tell 
Elijah to slay the four hundred prophets 
of Baal? Did God tell Samuel to command 
Saul to destroy the Amalekites without 
reserve and without mercy — men, women, 
children, and cattle? 

The Old Testament heroes certainly be- 
lieved that God wanted them to do these 
things. In doing them they believed that 
they were fighting God's battles. This is 
the most that can be said. But let it be care- 
fully noted just how much has been said. 

a. The highest point of ethics that any 
one can reach at any given time lies in 
doing what one believes God wants one to 
do. The specific things we do are deter- 
mined by the social, economic, and govern- 
mental conceptions of our times, and by the 
degrees of revelation that we are capable 

[112] 



of receiving. These Old Testament heroes 
obeyed their convictions of God's will ac- 
cording to the clearest light of their day. 
This is the utmost that any one can do at 
any time. We cannot do more today. To 
the question, then, Did God tell them to do 
these things? the answer must be that they 
believed God told them to do them ; and for 
men to follow where they believe God leads, 
is not only the highest ethics possible at the 
time, but the condition of receiving clearer 
light and reaching higher ethics. 

b. Again, What is the highest revelation 
one can receive from God? Simply the 
soul's persuasion of God's will. But is 
there not a difference between God's actual 
will and the soul's persuasion of God's will ? 
Certainly. The former is perfect and con- 
sistent from the beginning; the latter 
changes with increasing light. One's con- 
viction of what God's will is, depends upon 
home, school, church, associations, beliefs, 
and interests. A people's conviction of 
God's will depends upon current ideas, 
habits, customs, institutions, etc. 

When we say, then, that the Old Testa- 
ment heroes did what they believed to be 
God's will, we affirm that they reached the 

H [113I 



^be }&60ential6 of Cbcietiantti^ 

highest ethics for their day by acting upon 
the highest revelation that they were capa- 
ble of receiving. 

A serious error at this point lies in fail- 
ure to understand the inherent difficulty of 
revelation. We usually think and speak as 
though God could stand bodily before a 
man and tell him things. If this were done, 
how would God be recognized as God? 
One must be persuaded that it is really God 
who speaks. If God sends a personal mes- 
senger to declare his will, the messenger 
must bear credentials, and one must be per- 
suaded that the credentials are genuine. 
Satan may take the form of an " angel of 

light." 

If God simply speaks to us through our 
consciences, the case is the same: The 
supreme height of possible revelation at any 
time is the soul's conviction that God is 
speaking. Christ, as we know, came in 
human form to reveal God and make plain 
his will. Some were not persuaded. They 
said : " He hath a devil, and is mad : Why 
hear ye him" (John lo : 20). Others 
listened to his words and were puzzled. 
Some said, " If thou be the Christ, tell us 
plainly" (John 10 : 24). Christ did not 

[114] 



tibe Mblc 

tell them, for persuasion does not come by 
being told. At other times, when Christ 
claimed to be from God, they accused him 
of bearing witness of himself. As a matter 
of fact, Christ was, and is, a revelation of 
God only to those who believe him and 
are persuaded that he is from God. 

And so again, the highest possible point 
of revelation is conviction that God is speak- 
ing to the soulj and the highest point of 
ethics for us is the doing of God's will as 
we see it. These facts justify the Old Tes- 
tament as a partial and progressive revela- 
tion of God, and make plain why the Old 
Testament ethics could not have been other 
than they were. 

How to Read the Bible 

Every person should own a Bible. From 
his own Bible he should read and study. 
The writer, after over thirty years, still 
cherishes the Bible presented to him by 
his mother when he left home for college. 
On the fly-leaf, in mother's handwriting, 
are these words, selected from the first 
chapter of Joshua and from other noble 
Bible exhortations : 

[115] 



XLbc )&ddential6 of Cbrietianit^ 

My son, be strong and of a good courage; 
fear not, nor be afraid; for the Lord thy 
God, he it is that doth go with thee; he 
will not fail thee nor forsake thee. 

My son, only be faithful ; be steadfast, 

immovable; watch ye; stand fast in the 

faith; quit you like men; be strong, that 

3'^e may walk worthy of the high vocation 

wherewith he hath called you. 

Mother. 

This Bible was used as long as it w^as 
usable, and is now preserved as a keep- 
sake. 

One should have a system of marking the 
passages that especially appeal to him, being 
careful not to mark too freely, lest the 
abundance of marks divest them of signifi- 
cance. The portions marked one will read 
repeatedly, and from these one will derive 
the most benefit. The author has marked a 
few Psalms, the whole of which were help- 
ful, like the twenty-third, thirty-seventh, 
and a few others, with a simple check (x) 
beside the chapter number. In other 
Psalms he marks a verse, a portion of a 
verse, or a few verses, with a pencil line 
on the side margin. He never reads the 
Scriptures with more pleasure and profit 
than when he glances through the pages 

[ii6] 



Jibe Xiblc 

rapidly, reading only these marked por- 
tions. 

One should read one's Bible for at least 
three purposes, the purpose determining the 
method of reading: 

I. One should read for spiritual food. 
Just as a mature person eats the food that 
he likes, and finds that such food agrees 
with him best and nourishes him most, so 
for spiritual nourishment, he should read 
those portions of Scripture which appeal 
to him, find him, give him spiritual exhila- 
ration, reenforce his will, and deepen and 
broaden his love. All parts of Scripture are 
not alike in their food qualities. One must, 
therefore, select and repeatedly read some 
portions while passing over other portions. 

One weakness of our reading is a sort of 
felt necessity of reading a specified por- 
tion — a certain number of verses or a chap- 
ter. We appropriate more by thinking on 
what we read than by reading. When we 
have read a verse, a line, or any portion 
that stimulates thought, we should stop and 
think, and possibly read no farther at that 
time. Sometimes the first verse in a chap- 
ter will shoot a ray of light into the mind 
and reveal truth in a new way and with new 

[117] 



xrbe B00cntial6 of Cbrtstlanitis 

application. It is then well to stop and to 
live that day with the new thought. The 
profit is, not in the reading, but in what 
the reading brings to us. 

2. One should read the Bible for infor- 
mation — to familiarize one's self with the 
contents of the book. Ignorance of the 
actual contents of the Bible is amazing. 
And yet, after years of study, one is con- 
tinually surprised at the imperfectness of 
his information. If we master the contents 
of the Bible as we master other books, we 
must read the Bible as we read other books, 
reading a whole book at a sitting — the book 
of Genesis, or Exodus, or Matthew, or 
John, etc. 

This method of reading is important, not 
only to master the contents of the book, 
but also to grasp the purpose and method 
of different writers. For example, one 
contrasts Matthew and John, Esther and 
Jonah, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Job and 
Proverbs. In this way one is impressed 
with the different character and varying 
value of the separate books. 

3. Certain portions of the Bible should 
be studied intensively. Some portions can 
be adequately understood only by such 

[118] 



tlbe 3Biblc 

study. For example, the full significance of 
Amos or Hosea is not discerned without 
knowing the social, political, and religious 
conditions in Israel at the time. Certain 
portions of Jeremiah have little meaning 
for us apart from the background upon 
which the prophecy is projected. 

Such intensive study, of course, takes 
time, and at least a few books. But with a 
good Bible dictionary and a few modern 
commentaries one may make a good begin- 
ning. Suppose, for example, one is study- 
ing Amos. He will desire information on 
such questions as, Who was Amos ? Where 
did he live? What was his occupation? 
What conditions called forth his prophecy? 
What was the purpose of the prophecy? 
How was the message received ? What ap- 
plication has it to our day? To work 
through any portion of Scripture in this 
way gives it a grip on one which nothing 
else can do, and so fixes it in memory as to 
make it a Hfelong possession. 

It is of utmost importance to read the 
Bible daily. Life is about nine-tenths 
habit, and we come to neglect the things 
that are not built into the routine of each 
day. Daily Bible reading so fixes itself 

[119] 



^be J6s9ential0 ot Cbristlanits 

upon us that we feel as though a meal had 
been omitted if for any reason it is crowded 
out. If one reads a small portion of the 
Bible each day the amount read in a year 
will be a great surprise. A friend of the 
author's read through the whole " American 
Statesmen Series " in a surprisingly short 
time by reading three times a day during 
the few moments that he waited for meals. 
But the greatest advantage of daily reading 
is that it gives a tone to the spirit with 
which all wicked things are out of harmony. 
The Bible becomes the color stone of our 
spiritual eyes and makes us feel that all 
other colors must be brought up to it. The 
daily portion that we read is so much spir- 
itual atmosphere. All baser atmospheres 
are fetid and foul by contrast. 

We should not be troubled if at times 
the spiritual teachings of the Bible are ob- 
scure to us. The Bible is like nature. in that 
the understanding of it is a lifelong proc- 
ess. We understand largely according to 
our experiences. The mother who sorrows 
for her child will understand what may be 
dark to others. Whoever has made great 
sacrifices will discern what others will miss. 
The depth and hidden -wealth of the Bible 

[ 120 ] 



(Tbe JBible 

constitute both its perennial interest and 
its surpassing worth. 

Go to the Bible with your need, and your 
need will be met ; go with your discourage- 
ment, and you will be cheered; go with 
your cross, and you will be strengthened; 
go with your doubts, and you will gain as- 
surance; go with your sins, and you will 
find rebuke and correction; go repentant, 
and you will meet forgiveness. At all times 
you will find God, who by his word will 
nourish your spiritual life and stimulate 
you to loving service. 



[121] 



m 



PRAYER 



Problems of Prayer 

The older we grow, the simpler we be- 
come, and the more we realize that the best 
living does not depend upon the solution of 
all our problems. But young people want 
problems settled, not realizing that where 
one problem is settled two spring up in its 
place. Problems furnish us means of 
growth. When we have settled some, others 
project us into larger fields of thought 
where more difficulties await us. We do 
not insist upon explanations of digestion 
and assimilation before eating, upon under- 
standing electricity before lighting the 
house, or upon mastering the engine before 
riding in the cars. We should follow the 
same methods in religion as in the rest of 
life. 

Several definite religious problems are in- 
volved in prayer, and it may be well to con- 
sider them first. 



[125] 



Zbe i£0dentia[0 ot Cbtidtianiti? 

I . Young men have sometimes said to the 
writer, " I do not seem to get hold of any- 
thing when I pray." 

Possibly some make the same mistake 
about prayer that others make about con- 
version. Some form ideas of the conver- 
sion experience beforehand by hearing the 
experience of others, and then think that 
they are not converted unless the other's ex- 
perience is duplicated in their own. Some 
likewise form ideas beforehand of the feel- 
ings they ought to have in prayer, and then 
think that prayer is meaningless unless they 
have those feelings. 

In conversion one must make full sur- 
render to God and take whatever experi- 
ences come. So also in prayer, one must 
pour out one's desires and requests to God, 
irrespective of the feelings one has in doing 
so. Feelings vary according to physical, 
mental, and environing conditions. Christ 
teaches that prayer is based on faith; it 
rests on confidence in God ; and his urgence 
to prayer, and even to importunity in 
prayer, would indicate that he has in mind 
our rising and falling tides of feeling with 
reference to it and seeks to make resort to 
him independent of the flow of emotion. 

[126] 



2. " If God laiows what we want before 
we ask," some say, " why ask? " 

We are ignorant of methods of knowing 
beyond our own experiences. In human 
experience, the nearest approach to prayer 
is the asking of children. They ask parents 
freely for what they want, and parents re- 
spond according to their wisdom and love. 
Our difficulty here is not one of life but of 
logic. The parent's knowledge does not 
preclude the child's asking. Life is not 
lived by logic. We contrast God with men, 
saying : " Man is finite, but God is infinite ; 
man is limited in knowledge, but God is 
omniscient;" and then we presume to es- 
tablish life relations between ourselves and 
God upon the logical basis of our own defi- 
nitions. The method is absurd. Love de- 
fies logic ; faith ignores logic ; even our ordi- 
nary thinking processes, when checked up 
by formal syllogisms, are found to be more 
than half wrong. Life in a logical strait- 
jacket would be a dwarfed and pigmy thing, 
whereas it is intended to be free and grow- 
ing, entering into the personal relations of 
faith and love where logic is a stranger. 

Man has been redefining God from the 
early centuries of fetishism to the present 

[ 127] 



^be B60ential0 of Cbrietianit^ 

time. We are only gradually understand- 
ing Christ. It is, therefore, the veriest pre- 
sumption so to define God as to exclude 
prayer. The highest elements that we know 
in God are those seen in Christ — love, so- 
licitude, care, self -giving. Every one of 
these is directly responsive to prayer, and is 
seen to be so in Christ. He knew that peo- 
ple wanted to be healed, but in his whole 
ministry he relieved only two or three until 
they asked for healing. He knew that peo- 
ple wanted forgiveness, but he never for- 
gave without an expression of faith. 

Take all asking of children out of the 
home, and the reciprocal relations of parents 
and children would be destroyed; home 
would be cold, mechanical, and unsym- 
pathetic; children would remain undevel- 
oped; the mutual understandings, common 
purposes, unified motives, unrestrained love, 
reciprocal helpfulness, and glad cooperation 
of the family would be impossible. Our 
natures are so constituted that intercom- 
munication is a necessary method of growth. 
This is true in home, school, community, 
nation, and between nations. It is equally 
true between ourselves and God. 

We learn from psychology and sociology 

[128] 



that the mind itself is socially built, that 
without the mental interrelations and inter- 
actions of individuals the mind could -not 
come to normal development. All are 
familiar with the fact that Helen Keller's 
mind did not develop beyond that of the 
merest child until she was brought into com- 
munication with the outside world and with 
other people. If a babe were to be left 
on an uninhabited island it could not de- 
velop mentally into a normal person. Such 
development comes to the babe by the in- 
teraction of parents and child, the interrela- 
tions of children with each other, and the 
associations of people in all walks of life. 

In like manner, and under the same laws, 
our spiritual natures are developed by the 
interrelations and interactions of the human 
and divine. The higher and finer faculties 
of the soul remain dormant and undevel- 
oped until we enter consciously into rela- 
tions with God. 

It is a fact of common knowledge that 
the rapid progress of modern society is due 
very largely to improved methods of com- 
munication. It is a fact of common knowl- 
edge also that a non-praying Christian is 
a non-growing Christian and a non-work- 

I [ 129 ] 



Zbc J&0dential0 of Cbridtianiti^ 

ing Christian, while Christians with warm 
hearts and unflagging zeal in work for 
others are men and women of prayer. There 
is little accomplished of a spiritual nature, 
either within ourselves or through our ac- 
tivities, until we are in free, glad, and trust- 
ful communication with God. 

It must be concluded, then (i) that we 
are not warranted, simply on the basis of 
logic, in attributing to God methods of 
knowing which lie wholly beyond our ex- 
perience, and therefore wholly beyond our 
knowledge; (2) that the nearest relations 
to prayer that we know are found in the 
home, between parents and children, and 
without that which is practically prayer in 
these relations there could be no proper de- 
velopment either of individual or family; 
and (3) that the best evidence of the rea- 
sonableness of prayer is found in the spir- 
itual vitality and power of men and women 
who pray. Exceptions, of course, are to be 
found, but those who are doing the spiritual 
work of the world are those who pray. 

3. Do we, by asking, change God's mind, 
and get him to do what he had purposed 
not to do ? 

This question assumes that God has 

[ 130] 



figured out beforehand, and decided upon, 
everything from the beginning to the end 
of time. For this assumption there is no 
evidence whatever. All the analogies of life 
contradict it. The father does not figure out 
all the conduct of his child beforehand and 
decide what he will do in view of the child's 
acts. He lives responsively with his chil- 
dren day by day, and his conduct toward 
them is determined largely by their conduct. 
Christ is constantly urging upon us this 
human element in God, and insisting that 
the heavenly Father excels the human father 
in these reciprocal relations. " If ye then, 
being evil," he says, " know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much 
more shall your Father who is in heaven 
give good things to them that ask him " 
(Matt. 7 : 9-11). If an unjust judge 
avenge a widow of her adversary because 
she persists in asking, and is therefore 
troublesome, how much more, Qirist in- 
sists, will the heavenly Father — of course, 
from higher motives — answer the prayers 
of those who call upon him. (Luke 18 : 

1-8.) 

The highest elements of individuality 
that we know are human elements. If we 

[131] 



Zbc £00cntiald of Cbridtfanitis 

define God at all it must be, not in terms 
of logic, but by intensifying the highest and 
best elements in man. These are what we 
see in Christ — love, care, self-giving. If 
we define the relations of God to men, it 
must likewise be, not by logic, but by in- 
tensifying and magnifying the highest and 
best human relations — fellowship, respon- 
siveness, helpfulness. It is precisely this 
that Christ does when he points to the rela- 
tions between parents and children and, 
making them analogous to our relations 
with God, says. How much more. 

Even in the Old Testament it is specifi- 
cally taught that God's actions* are contin- 
gent on man's actions. If men sin, God will 
punish; but if men repent and turn from 
their sins, God will withhold the punish- 
ment. (Jer. i8 : 7-10.) 

This contingency of God's action upon 
man's action underlies the whole structure 
of the New Testament. All rewards and 
punishments are based upon it. Moreover, 
it lies in the very constitution of man's mind, 
and is the only open door to repentance and 
forgiveness. 

As matter of fact, children in the home 
secure by asking what otherwise they would 

[ 132] 



not secure. It is not because parents change 
their minds. Their minds have never been 
made up upon many things, but from the 
very nature of the case their decisions re- 
main contingent upon what children do. 
Asking and receiving are simply the nor- 
mal relations of parents and children. Elec- 
tricity is all about us and available for our 
use, but man's cooperation is necessary be- 
fore God will use it in driving cars, light- 
ing homes, or sending messages. Man does 
not change God's mind when he harnesses 
electricity and makes it do work that other- 
wise it would not do. On the contrary, he 
fulfils God's will, for God has made man 
a coworker with himself. Likewise, prayer 
does not change God's mind. It is the pro- 
duction of spiritual dynamos, the laying of 
spiritual wires, the making of spiritual con- 
nections. It is man's part in cooperating 
with God. It does in us, and gets done 
through us, what else would be impossible. 
Jesus Christ, as already stated, wrought 
most of his miracles in answer to requests, 
indeed, to pleading prayers. There is no 
indication that he would have noticed the 
ten lepers had they not cried out, " Jesus, 
Master, have mercy on us" (Luke 17 : 

[ 133 ] 



Zbc }£d6ential6 ot Cbcidtianitis 

13). Christ would have passed straight 
through Jericho, leaving the blind beggar 
still blind and still begging, had he not 
cried out for healing. (Mark 10 : 46-52.) 
In no case was Christ's mind changed by 
prayers for healing. He longed to heal 
every one in need of healing. He simply 
followed the normal methods for which our 
natures are made, the method which God 
evidently follows with us, and in which 
prayer is a working factor. It is a method 
which relates us to each other in the home 
and in society, and which relates us to the 
Father of spirits, a method which is neces- 
sary for our spiritual development, and 
without which we could not be normal spir- 
itual persons. 

It must not be forgotten that the great- 
est good in prayer is, not in what we get by 
asking, but in conscious fellowship with the 
divine Spirit which comes by asking and re- 
ceiving; not in getting what we want from 
God, but in conscious cooperation of life 
and work with God. The greatest good in 
friendship is, not what we get out of our 
friends by asking, but in the growing proc- 
esses of friendship-making which come 
from giving and receiving and all the rela- 

[134] 



prater 

tions incident thereto. The greatest good 
in married Hfe is not in what each gets from 
the other by asking. Such are but surface 
things, and usually material things, '' which 
perish with the using." The greatest good 
lies in the gradual and increasing merging 
of spirits which comes from the normal 
processes of asking, giving, receiving, etc. 

If now we repeat the question with which 
we began, " Do we, by prayer, change God's 
mind ? " surely it is evident how shallow 
the question is, how irrelevant to the real 
purposes of prayer, and how apart from 
the normal processes of life. 

Prayer is Power 

The proper test of prayer is, not whether 
we receive just what we ask for or not, but 
the total effect of the attitude and process 
of prayer upon our lives. The test of family 
life is, not whether children by asking get 
just what they want, but whether through 
the interrelations of parents and children — 
the asking of children, with requests some- 
times granted and as often refused — there 
is developed in children the best type of life. 
As indicated above, the virile, hopeful, force- 

[135] 



Zbc £00entiald ot Cbridtianitis 

ful working Christian is a praying Christian. 
To be persuaded that prayer gives spiritual 
power, one need only contrast the spiritual 
influence of those who pray with that of 
those who do not pray. Prof. William 
James, our greatest American psychologist, 
says that prayer is power and actually does 
spiritual work. This is not a matter of 
theory or logic, but of actual observation in 
the laboratory of life. 

We should note carefully, however, the 
difference between observation and experi- 
ment. We may observe the power of 
prayer, both in our life and in the lives of 
others; but if we experiment with prayer, 
and make tests to determine its power and 
efficacy, we destroy the conditions under 
which prayer does work. It is as though 
we made a test of love to see if it would 
refine character. Such test excludes the 
natural working of love. One cannot make 
a test of faith to see whether or not it is 
powerful, for a test implies doubt, and 
normal faith is not present. 

Christ teaches that the prayer of faith 
will '^ remove mountains." It is the condi- 
tion of the joint working of God and man 
in the spiritual realm; it is the union of the 

[ 136 ] 



thought, desire, purpose, and endeavor of 
the human and divine. 

By endeavoring to explain prayer we 
belittle it and make it a shallow thing. We 
need to abandon all thoughts of explanation 
and realize that it is possible for spirits to 
unite in desire and endeavor, and by uniting 
to reenforce each other. The heavenly 
Father can unite his desire and endeavor 
with those of his children and, by doing so, 
achieve ends that otherwise could not be se- 
cured. Prayer involves all the mysteries of 
human and divine personalities, but it is a 
means of fellowship and a source of power ; 
it brings us into cooperation with God; it 
does work. 

Christ's Emphasis on Prayer 

Christ prayed. This simple fact ought to 
sweep away all our puerile reasonings about 
prayer. Christ knew. He came from the 
Father, lived in constant fellowship with 
the Father, performed all his works in co- 
operation with the Father, and said that 
without the Father he could do nothing. 
He is our example and Master. Not that 
we would blindly follow example or Master, 

[137] 



Xlbc }£55entiald ot Gbci^tianitis 

but Christ's example inspires us with con- 
fidence in the vital significance of prayer. 
We can safely trust and follow him. 

While Christ lived in the constant atti- 
tude of prayer, we have record of his pray- 
ing on several crucial occasions : Before 
choosing his disciples he spent all night in 
prayer. (Luke 6 : 12.) Before raising 
Lazarus he prayed, not a prayer of request, 
but one of thankful fellowship and coop- 
eration with the Father. (John 11 : 41, 
42.) At the Last Supper he uttered what 
is called " the prayer before the cross," a 
prayer for his disciples, and for those who 
should believe on him through their word. 
(John 17.) In this prayer Christ expresses 
a marvelous interrelation of spirits, really 
an interpenetration of spirits : " That they 
all may be one," he prays; " even as thou, 
Father, art in me and I in thee, that they 
also may be in us. .. I in them, and thou in 
me, that they may be perfected into one " 
(John 17 : 21-23). This union of spirits 
in purpose and work is the very soul of 
prayer. Prayer leads to such union, both 
with God and men. In the garden Christ 
prayed that the cup of death on the cross 
might pass from him ; but he instantly sub- 

[138] 



©ra^et 

mitted himself to the Father's will in the 
words, '' Nevertheless, not my will, but 
thine, be done." And, finally, on the cross 
he prayed for those who crucified him, 
" Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." 

Christ repeatedly urged his disciples to 
pray. " Ask," he said, " and it shall be 
given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; 
knock, and it shall be opened unto you : 
for every one that asketh receiveth ; and he 
that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knock- 
eth it shall be opened " (Matt. 7 : 7, 8). 

The Lord's Prayer, as we have come to 
call it, is the model prayer, and should be 
carefully studied. (Matt. 6 : 9-13.) There 
is not a syllable of self-seeking in it. In 
the heart of the petition there is forgiveness 
for all mankind — friends and enemies. In 
the middle of the prayer is a simple request 
for daily bread. All else implies the union 
of human spirits with the Father of spirits, 
and expresses supreme interest in the 
Father's purpose and work — the hallowing 
of the Father's name, the coming of the 
Father's kingdom, the getting done of the 
Father's will, the overcoming of tempta- 
tions, and the conquering of sin. The 

[ 139] 



Zhc J600cntial0 of Cbrigtianltg 

prayer is breathed through and through 
with spiritual companionship with the 
Father — not my Father, but '' our " Father, 
the Father of all, rich and poor, strong 
and weak, learned and ignorant, slave 
and free, black and white, employer and 
employed, teacher and pupil. Not one is 
shut out. ** Forgive us our debts," for we 
are all sinful. Here is expressed a mar- 
velous human fellowship of confession and 
forgiveness, as well as fellowship with the 
compassionate Father who forgives. Into 
such a fellowship no one can enter without 
becoming purer, worthier, and more spirit- 
ually powerful. 

Practical Suggestions 

I. Our prayers should not be an effort 
to persuade God to do our way, but rather 
an effort to find out God's way. To him we 
should take all our wants, worries, and 
fears, just as a child takes these to its 
parents ; and then we should receive calmly 
and thankfully what God is pleased to give. 
To do this is simply to recognize our own 
ignorance and limitations, and to put faith 
in God's wisdom and love. He knows what 

[ 140] 



praser 

is best; we do not know. The older we 
grow the simpler we become in our prayers 
as in other things. The importance of pray- 
ing to our heavenly Father in a childlike way 
cannot be overemphasized. We should ask 
for just what we want as children do. 
Christ lays great emphasis on the childlike 
spirit; and there is no sweeter human fel- 
lowship than that in which we pour out our 
inmost soul to the intimate friend whom we 
can absolutely trust. A like relation of 
fellowship, springing from intimate friend- 
ship, should exist between us and our heav- 
enly Father. 

2. Prayer ought to be made a daily 
habit, and cultivated as such. It must not 
depend upon moods, " lest we forget " and 
neglect. One often begins to pray in cold- 
ness and ends in warmth of spirit, just as 
one often meets a friend in indifferent mood 
and goes away enthusiastic. Bringing our- 
selves into the fellowship of prayer does ac- 
tual work in us. It purifies our thoughts 
and desires; it strengthens our resolution; 
it increases our courage. Just as a discour- 
aged person feels better after a talk with a 
strong, optimistic friend, because something 
gf the friend's buoyancy and power has 

[141] 



Ube Bdaentiald ot Cbridtianiti^ 

somehow become his, so, after a talk with 
God, somehow some of the divine vision, de- 
sire, and resolution has come into our 
spirits. 

3. One ought to pray any time, anywhere, 
as immediate need requires. One of the 
author's football friends said to him, after 
returning from a hard-fought intercollegiate 
game : " As our squad trotted out on to the 
field, with the grand stand cheering us, I 
just lifted up a prayer that God would help 
me to play a hard, clean game ; and he did." 
Such prayers keep one consciously in touch 
with the Spirit of God, and bring to one 
a constant divine companionship which 
strengthens resolution, balks temptation, 
and increases spiritual power. 

4. There should be nothing in one's life 
which one is not willing to take to God in 
prayer. It may as well be concluded at once 
that what one cannot pray about is wrong 
for him. A very beautiful young woman, 
with a fine contralto voice, a member of a 
church choir, was offered flattering pay to 
sing in the choir of a larger church. She 
was greatly needed in her own church choir, 
but was singing without pay. Although she 
did not need the money, she asked her pas- 

[ 142 ] 



tor what she ought to do. Her pastor, loath 
to lose her, and yet not wanting to stand in 
the way of her advancement, said, " Pray 
about it, and do what you think God wants 
you to do." 

" Oh," she replied, " I know what I shall 
have to do if I pray about it." 

The incident is typical. We often try to 
persuade ourselves of the rightness of 
courses of conduct ; we seek to secure from 
friends advice that will back us up in our 
desires ; whereas, if we should honestly and 
squarely take the matter to God in prayer, 
resolved to do his will at whatever cost, 
things would be settled, and settled rightly, 
even before our prayers were uttered. 

The story of Adam and Eve shows them 
in the garden hiding from God after they 
have disobeyed. We all do the same; and 
it is a credit to our natures that we do so. 
One is rather brazen when, without shrink- 
ing, he can flaunt his sins in the face of 
God. A friend of the writer's — a Christian 
of noble spirit, but wont to lose control of 
his temper — occasionally became angry at 
his coal-miners, and swore at them. For 
some time after these outbursts he was not 
seen in prayer-meeting. It was a credit to 

[143] 



^be B0dentia[0 of Cbrtetianiti? 

him that he did not feel at home in prayer- 
meeting until he was ready to confess his 
wrong-doing. With our sin upon us we 
always hide from God. 

Healthy spiritual life is life in the open, 
with everything freely confessed to God, 
and with God gladly consulted about every- 
thing. Without constant fellowship with 
God the Christian life cannot be free, glad, 
and growing. Like rain and sunshine to 
the plant, so is unreserved fellowship with 
God to the growing soul. 

Sometimes, even when we are not con- 
scious of anything wrong in our lives, in- 
terest seems to die out of prayer. The 
lethargy of spiritual idleness is upon us. 
We have not " tackled " a big enough job 
for God. Undertake to win your uncon- 
verted chum, classmate, friend, or acquain- 
tance to Christ, and you will be driven to 
prayer because of the difficulty of the task. 
No Christian has undertaken a big enough 
task until he has undertaken a task that is 
too big — for him alone. Undertake to clean 
up your fraternity or college athletics, or to 
set a higher standard of morals in your 
school, in your company of soldiers, or in 
your home community, and you will be 

[144] 



praget 

driven to your knees by the bigness and dif- 
ficulty of the task, and you will ask kindred 
spirits to pray with you. But one with God 
is a majority, and nothing is too hard for 
those who trust and obey him. 



K [ 145 1 



DHH 
Hmmortallt? 



IMMORTALITY 



THE happier and busier we are today 
the less we think of tomorrow. In the 
early centuries of our era, when Christians 
were persecuted by pagans, and disap- 
pointed because Christ did not return as 
they expected, much attention was given to 
the next world. 

Later generations of Christians, by mis- 
interpreting Revelation, placed the New 
Jerusalem in heaven instead of on earth, 
and made it typical of a perfect heavenly 
condition instead of a perfected earthly so- 
ciety. Until recent times the cataclasmic 
idea of the world's destiny dominated 
human thought. For these and other rea- 
sons the desire to be " saved in heaven " 
was the moving purpose of the Christian 
world for more than a thousand years. 

In our day the purpose to be saved in 
heaven is still present, and ought to be, but 
our ideas of the relation of this world to 
the next have been greatly modified. We 

[ 149] 



Zb€ £d0ential0 of Cbtidtianitis 

have reinterpreted the Scriptures, and see 
the New Jerusalem coming down instead of 
going up. We have reread the teachings of 
Christ and learned that he came, not only 
to save a few in heaven, but to establish 
a kingdom of God on earth. We have com- 
pared the teachings of the Master with our 
scientific knowledge and found that both 
agree in emphasizing gradual processes. 
Our insistence, therefore, is that Christian- 
ity be immediately practical in building 
God's kingdom, and this we find to coincide 
with Christ's insistence on ministry. 

As a result of these changes the hereafter 
does not hold its former prominence in 
Christian thought. We have come nearer to 
Christ's balance between this world and the 
next, and we have acquired more of his 
faith in the heavenly Father's love, which 
permits us to rest in the assurance that if 
we live rightly and serve adequately here, 
our lives hereafter will come into their own 
as God has purposed. This changed em- 
phasis makes many appear careless about 
the hereafter, and some actually become in- 
different to it. 

Out of such conditions the agelong ques- 
tion naturally and inevitably recurs, Is there 

[ISO] 



fmmortalitis 

a future life at all ? " If a man die, shall he 
live again ? " 

Immortality not Demonstrable 

The temper of our young, scientific age 
is to demand proof. We are, however, be- 
ginning to outgrow this youthful absurdity, 
since no future event can be scientifically 
proved. Doctor Jefferson truly says : " You 
cannot demonstrate that the sun will rise 
tomorrow morning, nor can it be demon- 
strated that you will reach your home at 
the close of this service, nor can you prove 
that your long-tried friend will be faithful 
to you five years from now. We build all 
our life on probabilities. We cannot demon- 
strate anything beyond the reach of our 
senses, or the powers of the mind. Death 
passes beyond our reach." 

The deepest and best things in life can 
never be proved, nor the things of which we 
are most certain. One cannot prove scien- 
tifically that his wife or children love him. 
Yet his whole nature craves their love, re- 
sponds to it, rejoices in it, and finds satis- 
faction and realization through it. No evi- 
dence is so certain as this response of one's 

[151} 



Zbc £66entia[0 of Cbtiatianit^ 

nature to some great and fundamental fact. 
Tennyson says, '' Nothing worth proving 
can be proven, nor yet disproven." Demon- 
stration is simply exhibiting what is experi- 
enced. We believe that the sun will rise 
tomorrow because we have experienced its 
rising all our lives ; but to prove that it will 
rise again is beyond us. We believe in the 
law of gravitation because we have experi- 
enced it in the past, but we cannot prove 
that it will continue another hour. 

When one seeks to prove to another he 
simply endeavors to draw the matter within 
that other's experience. From the very na- 
ture of the case immortality cannot be 
demonstrated. Full proof must wait on ex- 
perience. Assurance is what we seek. The 
most certain things are not those formally 
proved but those discerned by the inner 
spirit. Man has a soul-sense which cannot 
be clearly intellectualized. There are some 
things, and immortality is one of them, so 
necessary to purposeful existence that our 
whole nature cries out for them. 

Dr. W. N. Clarke puts human experience 
in regard to immortality in a nutshell when 
he says : " There are three stages in the 
matter : the instinctive hope and conviction ; 

[152] 



fmmortaUtis 

reaction into uncertainty, whether from un- 
spiritual living, froni scientific thought, or 
from struggling with the problems of des- 
tiny; confidence regained through higher 
spiritual experience, especially in Christ. 
Many rest in the first stage, but many can- 
not remain there ; many see no farther than 
the second stage, but many cannot remain 
there; many rest in the third stage, while 
many cannot yet find it. In the end, noth- 
ing but fulness of life will most richly cer- 
tify endlessness of life.'* 

Belief in Immortality Universal 

So universal is belief in immortality that 
it must be regarded as a spiritual instinct. 
If there is reason and system in the uni- 
verse, instincts are indicative of the world 
without. Wings are not made where there 
is no medium to fly in ; the body is not made 
to be nourished with food where no food 
is provided. Eyes are for light, ears for 
sound, and love for objects of affection. 
Spiritual instincts likewise indicate a world 
and a life corresponding to them. The na- 
ture of the soul itself is prophetic of exis- 
tence in which it shall find fulness of life. 

[153] 



Zbc JSgecntials ot Cbristianit^ 

Belief in immortality is found as far back 
as we can go in history, and few if any liv- 
ing tribes are so low in savagery as not to 
hold the belief in some form. The uni- 
versal experience of death brings man face 
to face with the problem as soon as he has 
acquired power of abstract thought. The 
conclusion has always been that body and 
mind are different and separable, and that 
mind is superior to body. 

Conceptions of future life coincide with 
the degree of civilization that conceives 
them. The first were crude indeed ; the his- 
toric forms have been many; but the idea 
has persisted through all degrees of culture, 
and has increased in worthiness as man has 
risen in the scale of life. The course of his- 
tory is strewn with the wrecks of human 
error. Dreams have faded; superstitions 
have died ; teachings have been superseded ; 
philosophies have been forgotten; whole 
systems of thought have been relegated to 
the mental junk-heap; but the soul's con- 
viction of immortality has cast off its old 
forms for new ones ; it has persisted through 
all degrees of civilization, all types of 
thought, all human experiences ; it has 
grown with the growing centuries, linking 

[154] 



irmmortaUti8 

this world ever more closely with the next, 
connecting God ever more fully with the 
whole life, and making all life increasingly 
one. 

r 

Objections to Immortality 

Scientific materialists have sought to 
make soul inseparable from brain, affirming 
that the brain secretes thoughts as the liver 
secretes bile. They have pointed to the 
fact that the soul develops with the brain — 
growing into consciousness as the brain 
grows, showing youthful ideas and judg- 
ments when the body is in adolescence, 
reaching full mental vigor at the age of 
physical maturity, and exhibiting waning 
powers when the body grows feeble with 
age. 

That there is a connection between brain 
and soul, none will dispute, but that such 
connection is necessary to the soul's exis- 
tence, by no means follows, and the evi- 
dence is decidedly against it. 

In the first place, we know the fact of 
the connection of soul and body for a brief 
period in this life, but very little about the 
nature of that connection. Whence comes 

[155] 



the soul itself? Ancestors influence it, but 
it is different from all ancestors. Whence 
the genius or prophet? How comes the 
man in the fulness of time, when history is 
waxing to a crisis — a Lincoln, a Washing- 
ton, a Paul, or the Christ? With the single 
exception of temporary dependence, we are 
ignorant of the relation of spirit to flesh, 
and do not know that the connection is a 
necessary one. 

Doctor Jefferson, like many others, makes 
the brain the instrument of the mind. He 
likens the brain to an organ on which the 
musician plays. The organ is not the musi- 
cian, and the connection between the two is 
not necessary, except to produce music for 
human ears. The organ does not produce 
music, but transmits it. The music is in the 
player. Likewise thought is of the soul, 
and the brain transmits it and renders it 
available for us in our present state. Just 
as an injury to the organ impairs the music, 
so an injury to the brain impairs thought; 
but neither the musician nor the thinker is 
thereby impaired. 

The soul is conscious of being different 
from and superior to the body. It exercises 
the body, trains it, disciplines it, handles it, 

[156] 



immortality 

molds it, compels it to undergo sacrifice and 
punishment. It wrestles to overcome and 
subdue the body, and is distinctly conscious 
of victory when successful and of defeat 
when unsuccessful. 

The physiologists tells us that the sub- 
stance of the body changes every few years, 
including our brain substance; yet indi- 
vidual consciousness persists through all 
changes. It would be only a natural 
sequence for the soul to disengage itself en- 
tirely from the body in death, thus casting 
off the earthly instrument which it has con- 
stantly used and repeatedly renewed. The 
whole life situation points to the connection 
of soul and body in this world as tem- 
porary, and for the purpose of developing 
the spirit for a higher existence. When we 
think of what the soul is — its thoughts, as- 
pirations, resolutions, memories, sympathies, 
loves, antipathies, strivings, and ideals — and 
contrast it with what the body is, the sub- 
jection of sou] to body is seen to be absurd, 
and that the soul should perish with the 
body impossible. 

A second objection to immortality is that 
we cannot see the spirit depart at death. 
Strange to say, this objection comes most 

[157] 



tTbe £d0ential0 of Cbttetianiti^ 

frequently from those who have much to do 
with death — physicians, nurses, undertak- 
ers, and those who see much of death in all 
its ghastliness on battlefields. 

This objection is not one of modern 
science, except when scientists are inclined 
to materialism. It is an ancient objection 
and has no scientific basis whatever. Jesus 
said that the world could not receive the 
Spirit of truth because it did not see him. 
(John 14 : 17.) Not to believe in spiritual 
existence because spirits are not seen with 
physical eyes, indicates little reflection upon 
the common facts of life. We are conscious 
of self, but cannot see self; conscious of 
each other, but cannot see each other's real 
selves. Indeed, physical nature is filled with 
mighty forces that we cannot see — electric- 
ity, magnetism, gravity, vital force, and 
scores of others. 

Eyes are very crude material instruments, 
as Jesus indicated when he said that men, 
having eyes, see not. Even what our eyes 
tell us of gross physical nature is often 
wrong and must be corrected by reason. 
Our eyes tell us that people grow smaller 
as they recede from us, that streets and 
railroads grow narrower in the distance, 

[158] 



HmmortaUti? 

that a straight stick becomes crooked when 
placed in water, that the sun moves around 
the earth, that cities are Hfted into the 
clouds, that there is plenty of water just 
yonder in the desert, and many other like 
things. Physical eyes never were made to 
see spirits. They were not even made to 
see microbes or distant suns without aid. 
And with all the aid we can get there are 
yet many physical things that we cannot 
see. The eyes are crude instruments to help 
us over a few physical difficulties, to give us 
a little pleasure, and to help us to necessary 
training in a material world. To a spiritual 
world they are no more related than are 
tasting, smelling, or feeling. Jesus, refer- 
ring to the perception of truth, said that 
spiritual things were spiritually discerned. 
Likewise the assurance of immortality must 
come, not through physical eyes, but through 
the sense of the soul. 

Some object that none return from the 
eternal world. This objection would seem 
to arise out of unwarranted curiosity, while 
also implying the demand, above referred 
to, that we shall see spirits with physical 
eyes. It fails to apprehend the real nature 
of life as a whole. Does the butterfly re- 

[ 159 ] 



Zbc JBeecntialB of Cbridtianiti^ 

turn to its caterpillar state? Does seed re- 
turn to blossom, and blossom to bud ? Does 
the grown man return to his prenatal state, 
or to childhood or youth ? Does civilization 
return to savagery? The processes of life 
are all forward. For aught we know the 
spirits of the departed are all about us, 
though we lack powers to discern them. 
" No man hath seen God at any time," yet 
" in him we live and move and have our 
being." 

Others have objected that we cannot con- 
ceive of spirits apart from the body. This, 
however, is no objection to immortality. 
The human mind is not the measure of the 
universe. There are multitudes of facts 
which we are aware of but cannot construe 
to thought. We become aware of electricity 
in the lightning flash, in the shock from the 
wire, or in the lighted house. But apart 
from these manifestations to our physical 
sense we cannot construe electricity to 
thought, and we have no positive knowl- 
edge whatever as to the nature of its sub- 
stance, or even as to whether or not it is 
substance. After being shown through an 
electric plant filled with all kinds of ma- 
chinery for using electricity, the author in- 

[i6o] 



ffmmortaltti^ 

quired, "What is electricity?" "Nobody 
knows," was the prompt reply. The atmos- 
phere is filled with it; our bodies hold it; 
we control it and make it work for us, yet 
we cannot apprehend it or construe it to 
thought. 

The same is true of all physical forces. 
We know them only in a few crude mani- 
festations wherein they break through upon 
our physical senses. How much more is it 
impossible for us to construe to thought dis- 
embodied spirits. We have known them in 
the crude manifestations of the physical 
body, and have experienced their mighty 
power. But to know them apart from the 
body is as yet beyond us. 

Professor James aptly suggests that the 
human nervous system is like a great win- 
dow of colored glass which lets in only dim 
light from the spiritual world, so that when 
the spirit is out of its temporary fleshly 
temple it shall see more clearly, instead of 
being like a candle snuffed out when the 
body perishes. Such a conception one may 
easily and reasonably hold without demand- 
ing that our limited minds comprehend the 
methods of spiritual existence. Can we 
think of our soldier boys giving themselves 

L [i6i] 



XLbc £00entiald ot Cbri0tianiti3 

in battle for life's highest spiritual values 
only to perish in the act of thus giving 
themselves, and to have those values perish 
in a brief space? The fact of immortality, 
then, we can and do construe to thought; 
the method of existence of disembodied 
spirits, we cannot know, need not know, 
and have no means of knowing. 

Scientific Corroboration of Immortality 

While there can be no scientific demon- 
stration of immortality, numerous scientific 
principles and analogies lead toward it. 

1. The utter difference between body and 
spirit, and the transcendence of spirit over 
body, indicate their different nature and 
destiny. The fact that the body perishes 
can be no reason for believing that the spirit 
perishes. Man is master of his body. He 
feeds it or starves it, develops it or neglects 
it, conquers it or becomes slave to it, 
chastens it or pampers it ; but in every case 
the soul knows itself as superior, and as 
using the body as dwelling or an instru- 
ment. 

2. Not only so, but man is master of 
the material world in which he lives. He 

[162] 



fmmottalitfi 

discovers its laws and uses its forces. He 
makes gravity and electricity do his bidding. 
He changes his environment and makes it 
suit his purposes. Land, ocean, and air he 
makes his servants. To think of such a 
masterful creature ceasing to be when the 
bodily instrument is worn out, is to identify 
instrument with user in an irrational way, 
and is inconsistent with man's place, power^ 
and prerogative in a universe where he 
stands at the head. 

3. Science knows nothing of the cessation 
of force. One of its well-established laws 
is that force may change form — as electric- 
ity into heat, heat into light, etc. — ^but can- 
not cease to be. Apart from God, what 
force is greater than the human spirit, 
which has placed the universe under its 
feet, discovered its laws, harnessed its 
forces, and made it obedient in service ? 

4. Science knows the world of animals 
and men as urged on in upward progress 
by instincts. It is a long story, but a fact 
recognized and taught by science, that the 
instincts for food, sex, association, self-de- 
fense, and others, have worked together, 
all urging the animal life process upward 
toward a distant and destined goal. 

[ 163 ] 



^be £ddcntial0 of Cbridtianitis 

5. Man is still governed largely by in- 
stincts. Reason is his baby faculty, the 
latest born of them all. When one gives 
attention to the matter, one is amazed to 
learn how little our lives are governed by 
reason and how much by instinctive feel- 
ings, appetites, desires, and passions. Our 
hopes and fears are not dictated by reason, 
but are often quite contrary to it. The 
forces which have urged the race up to its 
present state have been largely instinctive. 

Man's highest instinct is his spiritual in- 
stinct for immortality. Like love, desire 
for companionship, faith, and conscience, it 
has been an instinct of mighty power, urg- 
ing upward toward a goal, which reason in 
its infancy cannot make clear. 

6. For the spirit to leave the body and 
assume separate spiritual existence, is to 
reproduce in a higher realm and different 
way what is constantly occurring in na- 
ture. All living creatures pass through sev- 
eral stages, casting off the old bodies as 
they pass. On this point Christ cites the 
death of the seed as a precondition of new 
grain. The tgg is left behind for the 
larger life. The world of the human em- 
i3ryo is so different from that into which 

[ 164 ] 



1fmmortaUt« 

the babe is born that the translation from 
this Hfe to the next, while sufficiently close 
in scientific analogy, would seem to be but 
rising another step in consistent onward 
progress. 

7. Everywhere in the scientific world im- 
perfection prophesies perfection; and the 
imperfection of man's powers in this life 
prophesy another life where they shall real- 
ize the fulness of their possibilities. How 
immature are our reasoning powers ! How 
little our knowledge ! How weak our faith ! 
How deficient our insight! How dull our 
feelings ! How weak our wills ! Is this the 
fulness of human realization? Is man to 
be no more than the mere beginnings of a 
competent personality, floundering in the 
universe of which he is the highest product ? 
Are his feelings forever to lead him astray 
and betray him to his weaknesses? Is he 
forever to fail of the highest to which he 
aspires? Is he to be forever immature, 
and never to acquire other than a wavering 
course in life, to be forever without ade- 
quate goal and worthy destiny? Science 
can produce no evidence against immortal- 
ity, and many facts in nature point directly 
to it. 

[ 165 ] 



Zbc Bd0ential0 ot Cbri0tianiti3 

Personal Immortality 

Some, while admitting eternal life, deny 
continuance of personal conscious existence. 
The conscious individual, some hold, is ab- 
sorbed back again into God. 

Of such process of absorption we know 
absolutely nothing. One can influence an- 
other, but cannot hand himself over, or be 
taken over, to be absorbed by another. To 
make such statements is to use words with- 
out meaning. 

On the contrary, our experience is that 
the growing soul becomes ever more differ- 
entiated from other souls, and ever more 
firmly established in its separateness. The 
processes of life are away from absorption, 
and point to perpetuity of individual exis- 
tence. 

Some would make us eternal only in that 
our influence continues forever. Doctor 
Fosdick calls attention to the fact that scien- 
tists have demonstrated that there are seven 
ways in which this planet may be destroyed, 
and that in time it must be destroyed in one 
of these seven ways. It is, of course, need- 
less to talk about the continuance of per- 
sonal influence after this planet and the race 

[i66] 



fmmortaUts 

of men upon it have been destroyed. This 
pronouncement of science renders the eter- 
nal influence theory absurd. Without per- 
sonal immortality the universe is laboring 
for naught ; it is bringing souls to a high 
state, snuffing them out, and destroying all 
traces of their influence. Man, as the 
crowning product of the universe, must find 
consummation and goal in permanent per- 
sonal values. It is unthinkable that the 
highest achievement of the whole evolu- 
tionary process should be destroyed in the 
making. The forces of evolution push to- 
ward the psychic, and increasingly build 
personality. Their adequate achievement 
can be nothing less than personal immor- 
tality. 

To personality both here and hereafter, 
Christ gave supreme value, and his valua- 
tion has been one of the dominant forces in 
social development from his day to the 
present. It has given impetus to democ- 
racy, inspiration to social service, and war- 
rant to our convictions' that every individual 
has a right to worthful life. 

Well does Martineau say : "I do not 
know that there is anything in nature (un- 
less, indeed, it be the reputed blotting out 

[ 167 ] 



^be J6ddential0 of Cbriattantt^ 

of suns in the stellar heavens) which can 
be compared in wastefulness with the ex- 
tinction of great minds : their gathered re- 
sources, their matured skill, their luminous 
insight, their unfailing tact, are not like in- 
stincts that can be handed down ; they are 
absolutely personal and inalienable; grand 
conditions of future power, unavailable for 
the race, and perfect for an ulterior growth 
of the individual. If that growth is not to 
be, the most briUiant genius bursts and 
vanishes as a firework in the night." 

The forces of the universe do not thus 
end in negation. The long processes of 
evolution do not reach their climax in de- 
stroying the personality which they have 
labored to produce. John Fiske says that 
to deny the everlasting spiritual element in 
man is to rob the whole process of evolu- 
tion of its meaning, and that no one has, 
or is likely to allege, sufficient reason for 
such denial. 

Immortality the Only Adequate Sanction 
for Morals 

Let any who doubt immortality consider 
the alternative. It is not sufficient simply 

[i68] 



fmmortalitis 

to object. One should replace objection 
with constructive philosophy. When any- 
thing can neither be proved nor disproved 
one has a choice of beliefs, and is under 
obligation to choose the best. One should 
choose the optimistic, forward-looking, and 
uplifting attitude, that attitude which fits 
the soul at its best, which gives rationality, 
worthfulness, and purpose to the world, 
which makes God wise and just, and which 
gathers up and preserves for one all that 
is most precious in life. 

If one choose to believe that he dies like 
a beast he will live like a beast. Belief in 
immortality is the mightiest moral leverage 
in civilization, involving belief in laws of 
God that must be obeyed, and a difference 
between right and wrong that yields dif- 
ferent deserts and brings to different ends. 

The question is not that of doing right 
for reward, or of refraining from wrong 
through fear of punishment, but of the 
recognition of a difference between right 
and wrong that is fundamental and eter- 
nal because right and wrong build charac- 
ters fundamentally and eternally different. 
Without belief in such distinction, and that 
such distinction inheres in God, and must 

[169] 



Cbe Bsscntlalg ot Cbcfstlantts 

be recognized in life, we could not build 
moral character at all. Let it be remem- 
bered that belief in eternal life has been 
central to the whole process of human de- 
velopment. If that faith should suddenly 
disappear, doubtless the momentum of 
ideas, feelings, habits, and customs, would 
carry us on for a time on much the same 
level that we have reached. And yet even 
this is doubtful. Dr. Harry Pratt Judson, 
after returning from a mission to the Near 
East, said : " I saw in Batum and parts of 
Transcaucasia many refugees from Bolshe- 
vism. I don't know whether we know what 
Bolshevism means. Some people may think 
it is not so bad. But I saw many who had 
suffered from it. It meant robbery, it meant 
murder, it meant treachery, it meant they 
always murdered priests in the church when 
they found them. It meant one time that 
they took an archbishop and burnt him over 
a slow fire and called on him to get his God 
to work a miracle for him, if he could. It 
meant that they have organized the schools 
on the basis of atheism and have organized 
regular courses in atheism, so the children 
are taught there is no God. It means the 
destruction of all our standards of morals." 

[170] 



ITm mortality 

So soon do men deteriorate when they 
relinquish belief in immortality ! What 
would be our state of morals today if no 
one had ever believed in life after death, but 
instead, all had always believed that death 
ended conscious life. In considering so mo- 
mentous a matter the thoughtful person 
will not be a mere objector or disbeliever. 
He will push his objections to their logical 
conclusion, and interpret their effects upon 
the lives of men in case all men believed, 
and always had believed, as he does. 

Man's moral nature requires immortality 
for its proper development. Just as the boy 
cannot live an adequate boy's life except in 
expectation of oncoming manhood, no more 
can man live an adequate moral life apart 
from expectation of life after death. Apart 
from anticipated manhood the boy lives 
simply in the desires and joys of youth 
without taking upon himself those disci- 
plines apart from which adequate manhood 
is impossible. So also, without anticipation 
of immortality man lives simply in the de- 
sires and satisfactions of this life, without 
taking upon himself those disciplines apart 
from which moral manhood is impossible — 
the fear and love of God, obedience to the 

[171] 



cbe J£d0ential6 of Cbriatianit^ 

will of God, loyalty to the right, and self- 
sacrifice for principle. In a word, no part 
of life can be lived adequately unless life in 
its totality comes, if not within view, at 
least within the grasp of faith, so that every 
part of life is lived in the consciousness of 
the whole of life — its worthfulness, its pos- 
sibilities, its eternal nature, and its relation 
to God. Human nature is made to a scale 
so large that this world can neither contain 
nor satisfy it. It demands immortality to 
make it consistent and give it warrant. 

Apart from- eternal life Emmanuel Kant 
found no justification for our obedience to 
conscience. The foundation of morals is 
accountability, the conviction that we sow 
what we reap, and that we live in a universe 
that is just. In this world we often see the 
wicked flourishing " like the green bay tree " ; 
we see men " sowing the wind " without 
" reaping the whirlwind " ; we see right on 
the scaffold and wrong on the throne. Jus- 
tice is out of balance. It goes without say- 
ing that righteous men cannot be built in 
a world constituted in seeming unrighteous- 
ness. Reference is here, not only to the 
injustice which men perpetrate, but to the 
ruthlessness of natural forces — the earth- 

[ 172 ] 



Hmmoctailtg 

quake, the flood, the famine, the pestilence, 
the cyclone, the lightning stroke, and many 
other such calamities. This world, viewed 
apart from an eternal world, is unjust, 
sometimes fickle, often cruel, and is not an 
adequate basis of, or discipline for, moral 
character. 

If this life is the whole of man's life, 
a proper and adequate philosophy would be, 
" Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we 
die " ; let us get the most and give the least, 
for there is no one to call us to account, no 
final sifting of life's values, no building into 
character of higher elements to be preserved 
eternally, no assurance that this life is dis- 
ciplinary for life beyond life. Such a world 
could not possibly build moral men. 

On the other hand, man's nature is in 
harmony with the other view of the world — 
the educative and disciplinary view. In sin- 
ning there is a sense of loss of the higher 
life; in sacrificing for righteousness there 
is a sense of gain, achievement, and victory. 
Christ's saying, " He that saveth his life 
shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for 
my sake shall find it," is not a dictum of 
philosophy, but an expression of the soul's 
deepest experience. This consciousness of 

[ 173 ] 



Zbc Beacntiala ot Cbtt5tian(t^ 

the value of self-achievement through right- 
eousness finds its warrant in eternal life. 

Some object that immortality is made a 
reward for righteousness, whereas right- 
eousness should be sought for its own sake. 
" Righteousness for its own sake " is words 
without meaning. Righteousness is never 
sought for its own sake, even by those of 
highest aspirations, to say nothing of the 
rank and file, but always because it is re- 
lated to one's own life, and to the lives of 
others, and is worthful in those relations. 
We do not look upon life next week as a 
reward for decent living this week. We 
view life this week and next as one, and 
we are decent this week because we expect 
to live with ourselves and others next week. 
The anticipated life of tomorrow always 
gives the major significance to the life of 
today, not as reward — and yet it is re- 
ward — because life is one, continuous, and 
because the worth of life tomorrow is al- 
ways determined by the character of life 
today. According as I do right or wrong 
today I expect to look myself in the face or 
be ashamed of myself tomorrow. And ac- 
cording as I live worthily here I expect life 
to be worthful hereafter. It is life here- 

[174] 



•ffmrnortalitig 

after that gives moral significance to life 
here. 

" Immortality," says Doctor Denney, " is 
a stupendous idea when we really take it in ; 
and to grasp it as not merely an idea but 
a reality implies spiritual strength on a cor- 
responding scale." How shall they believe 
in immortality who have not the quality of 
life that is immortal? Spiritual things are 
spiritually discerned. The artist is the 
only one who fully appreciates the value of 
art and is strongly moved by it. Those 
who do not discern and appreciate spiritual 
values are not much inclined toward im- 
mortality; and inclination and desire are 
three-fourths of persuasion. " The man 
who has nothing in life he would die for 
has nothing in life worth living for; and 
the life that is not worth living will never 
believe in its own immortality." 

Immortality and high moral character are 
twin parts of the same conception of life. 
They are necessary each to the other; they 
have come down through history together; 
and the nobler our conceptions of immor- 
tality become the intenser grow our aspira- 
tions for excellence of character. Doctor 
Snowden truly says : " The immortality of 

[175] 



tlbe :600ential0 of Cbtidtianiti^ 

the human soul has ever been one of the 
great hopes of the world, extending almost 
as wide and deep as the consciousness of 
the race, engaging the thought of the pro- 
foundest thinkers, poets, and prophets, pro- 
ducing some of our noblest literature, fur- 
nishing the main ground and goal of 
religion, building strong and fine character, 
and comforting the human heart in its deep- 
est and darkest sorrows ; and it has not 
withered under the light of modern knowl- 
edge, but is still a living problem of religion, 
science, philosophy, and popular interest." 

Death and Immortality Enrich Life 

While there is not space here to discuss 
the matter, it could easily be shown that 
death, coupled with faith in immortality, 
brings into life values of highest significance 
for individual character and human relation- 
ships. One has said : " The seriousness of 
death is the consecration of life, the strength 
of love, the spur to action. . . Should we 
have religion and philosophy if there were 
no death ? Should we have a sense of seri- 
ousness and urgency of life if there were 
no death? Should we have an effective ad- 

[176] 



IFmmortalltB 

monition to give life its highest worth, to 
improve the time, to fill the \vorld with good 
deeds, if there were no death? " 

Let one picture to himself two worlds : 
one filled with men who deny the Christian 
conception of God, and believe that death 
ends all; the other, a world where men 
gather in their places of worship and sing 
" Praise God, from whom all blessings 
flow," and pray " Create in me a clean 
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit with- 
in me," a world in which men plan and 
work to build society on the principles of 
Jesus Christ, confident that when life and 
work here are ended, there awaits them the 
" Well done, good and faithful servant." 
One is picturing two very different worlds : 
one filled with inspiration and hope, and 
with a sense of life's worthfulness ; the 
other, a world of gloom, doubt, fear, and 
pessimism. Not only has faith in immor- 
tality filled life with life's richest and best, 
but the assurance of immortality itself is 
life's best, the master achievement of per- 
sonality, which gives to life its supreme 
value and bears eloquent testimony to the 
worth of the individual as a son of God. 
So closely is immortality connected with 

M [ 177 ] 



Zbc £d0entiald ot Cbri^tianiti? 

life's highest and best that, as Doctor Clarke 
says, *' All low, worldly, and unspiritual 
life tends toward doubt of it, and all high 
living tends to belief in it." 

The Lowly Origin of Immortality 

Some would discredit immortality by 
pointing to the lowly origin of the idea, to 
lack of agreement in conceptions of im- 
mortality, and to the fact that present con- 
ceptions have been molded largely by human 
experience. 

These facts, on the contrary, greatly in- 
crease the certainty of immortality. What 
great truth of philosophy, religion, science, 
or government has not had a similar his- 
tory ? Every conception of the human mind 
was crude at its birth. Each has passed 
through many changes, been purged of 
many errors, and brought to worthier forms 
by experience. This is our necessary 
method of acquiring knowledge ; and the 
more fundamental the problem, the longer 
and the more tedious are the processes of 
arriving at the truth. Consider our concep- 
tion of God, our understanding of Christ, 
our deepening sense of human brotherhood, 

[178] 



ITmmortalitB 

our ideals of individual and social charac- 
ter, and our valuation of truth and right- 
eousness — each was crude at first ; each has 
had its battles with error; all have become 
more worthy and adequate as the race pro- 
gressed. 

The Inadequacy of this World 

When one considers the human race in 
this world either from the standpoint of 
self-realization or of social adequacy, men 
are seen to be much like children at play. 
What immaturity we reveal! What folly 
we perpetrate! How we injure both our- 
selves and others ! What delusions and 
misconceptions we entertain! How short- 
sighted we are ! From what unworthy mo- 
tives we act! How the satisfactions we 
seek escape us ! How much we labor to no 
purpose! How we fail of right develop- 
ment and high attainment ! 

Such facts stamp this world as life's kin- 
dergarten, with but beginnings of individual 
development, and only first attempts at so- 
cial adjustments. The love that makes in- 
dividual joy full, that unifies human desires 
and aspirations, and binds us all together 

[179] 



by binding us all to God, is in bud. Its 
bloom and maturity are in the eternal world. 
In this world fulness of pleasure does not 
satisfy; wealth does not satisfy; nothing 
simply of this world satisfies. The most 
learned are most keenly aware of their 
ignorance ; the most righteous are the most 
self-accusing; those whom we hold dearest 
are snatched away by death. When we 
have taken from this world the most that it 
holds for us, all is yet in process, nothing is 
finished. We stand facing a future where 
knowledge will be completed, righteousness 
attained, and love made perfect. 

Man's undying passion for life is the voice 
of immortality in his soul. We tenaciously 
cling to life in this world notwithstanding 
its work and worry ; and we equally cling to 
the hope of life after death in the face of all 
its mysteries and uncertainties. Toward 
the close of his life, nothwithstanding his 
materialistic views, Thomas Huxley con- 
fessed his shrinking from annihilation, and 
said that he had sooner be in hell than 
annihilated. How could a man, conscious 
of noble talents, high attainments, and soul- 
power and worth, feel otherwise? Finely 
did Victor Hugo voice the passion of noble 

[i8o] 



IfmmoctaUtiJ 

souls when at seventy he wrote : " Winter is 
on my head, and eternal spring is in my 
heart. The nearer I approach the end, the 
plainer I hear around me the immortal sym- 
phonies of the worlds which invite me." 

When the body is worn out and feeble 
with sufferings, we long to enter that life 
where youth shall be renewed again in 
higher form; when friends and loved ones 
have gone before us, and this world is 
grown lonely, we long to rejoin them, that 
love may be kindled anew and burn with 
purer flame; when we have grown wise 
with so much learning that the mysteries of 
life have multiplied and deepened on every 
hand, we yearn for that life where the veil 
shall no longer be on our faces and we shall 
see clearly and know fully. Here we be- 
lieve, trust, love, and serve, but in and 
through all is the larger hope. All life 
processes take us by the shoulders and face 
us toward the future, where life at length 
shall be complete. 

God's Love Gtmrantees Immortality 

If there were no God of love we could be- 
Heve that there is no immortality. But a 

[i8i] 



Zhc B56ential0 of Cbdatianitg 

God who would create such a world as ours 
apart from immortality, who would develop 
life by such a long, tedious process, and 
who would make man to reach only imper- 
fection while filled with instincts and aspira- 
tions for perfection, would be a cruel or an 
impotent God, uncaring or unable to com- 
plete his creation and bring it to worthy 
issue. 

" It is an intolerable thought," wrote 
Darwin, " that man and all other sentient 
beings are doomed to complete annihilation 
after such long-continued slow process." 

Although we live in a world of great in- 
justice and manifest wrong, we rightly re- 
gard God as a loving Father, for Jesus 
teaches that there is a world hereafter 
where the eternal balances are struck. In 
order to believe in God's goodness we must 
view this world as disciplinary and educa- 
tive. 

With great force Jesus taught that God's 
love was the guaranty of immortality : God 
so loved the world that he sent Christ to 
bring men to eternal life. (John 3 : 16.) 
None should be able to pluck out of the 
Father's hands those who are joined to 
Christ in love. (John 10 : 28, 29.) 

[182] 



fmmottalttis 

Paul pours out his soul in eloquent 
thanksgiving for assurance of eternal union 
with the loving God when he exclaims, 
" For I am persuaded that neither death, 
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from 
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord " (Rom. 8 : 38, 39). 

This experience of God's love is the- com- 
mon experience of Christians, an experience 
without which repentance and forgiveness 
have no meaning. The common experience 
of alienation from God through sin, and 
of turning from sin to God, is an experience 
of God's love as real, and as vivid to con- 
sciousness, as is love of husband or wife, 
parent or child. God's love and immor- 
tality coincide so inevitably each with the 
other as to make them phases of the same 
great truth — that man is God's child, 
created in his image, and cannot be sepa- 
rated from him while love abides. 

God's love and Christ's love bind us in 
an eternal circle of love with family and 
friends. "Because I live," says Christ, " ye 
shall live also." Now, though the mother 

[183] 



^be JSddential0 ot Cbristianiti^ 

lays her child in the grave, the stone is rolled 
away; there is a resurrection morning. 
Though children consign their parents to 
the dust, they " are not there," they " are 
risen." Those who have loved and feared 
and hoped and prayed for them have not 
ceased to be. To make this circle of love 
only a temporary and passing thing is to 
mock the very soul of life. God's love and 
Christ's love are unfailing pledges of im- 
mortality. 

Christ's Attitude to Immortality 

For two thousand years the determining 
forces of social evolution have been those 
which emanated from the life, work, and 
teachings of Jesus Christ. The quality of 
his life is recognized as that for which all 
should strive; his teachings constitute a 
philosophy of life which is a continuous 
revelation, and toward which society is 
steadily moving; his work has won men 
from animalism, filled them with a new 
dynamic, and set them to work making a 
better world. These forces are as cosmic 
in the world of men as are light, heat, and 
electricity in the physical world. They have 

[184] 



■ffmmottalitis 

determined the direction of civilization's 
progress, and filled it with power for the 
unfolding of higher life. 

It is of first importance, then, in any dis- 
cussion of immortality, to note what Jesus 
Christ says about it. What he says is of 
greater significance than what all others 
say. 

Every utterance of Qirist's on immor- 
tality is characterized by absolute assurance 
of its reality and supreme worth, as the fol- 
lowing passages amply indicate : " I came 
out from the Father, and am come into the 
world: again, I leave the world, and go 
to the Father" (John 16:28). "We 
speak that which we know, and bear witness 
of that which we have seen " (John 3 : 11). 
" Before Abraham was, I am " (John 8 : 
58). " If I go and prepare a place for you, 
I come again, and will receive you unto 
myself; that where I am, there ye may be 
also" (John 14 : 3). These words, and 
many others which Christ uses, point di- 
rectly to personal immortality and spiritual 
fellowship. Christ draws picture after pic- 
ture of heaven : " And I say unto you," he 
says, " That many shall come from the east 
and west, and shall sit down with Abra- 

[i8s] 



(Tbe £00etitiald of Cbridtianitis 

ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom 
of heaven" (Matt. 8 : ii). He shows us 
Lazarus comforted in Abraham's bosom 
and Dives tormented in hell, with a great 
gulf fixed between the two. (Luke i6 : 19- 
31.) He pictures the righteous on his right 
hand and the wicked on his left, with him- 
self as judge ; and from his lips we hear the 
words, " Come, ye blessed " and " Depart 
from me, ye cursed" (Matt. 25 : 34, 41). 
Again and again, with sentences as authori- 
tative as a king's proclamation, he teaches 
life eternal, and the separation of the right- 
eous from the wicked : " These (the wicked) 
shall go away into everlasting punishment ; 
but the righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 
25 : 46). "For God so loved the world, 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him should not 
perish, but have eternal life " (John 3 : 
16). "He that believeth on the Son hath 
eternal life ; but he that obeyeth not the Son 
shall not see life; but the wrath of God 
abideth on him" (John 3 : 36). 

When Christ does not speak of life here- 
after in pictures, his favorite contrast is 
between life and death : " I am the resur- 
rection and the life: he that believeth on 

[186] 



■ffmrnortaliti? 

me, though he die, yet shall he live, and 
whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall 
never die" (John ii : 25, 26). Crowning 
all other assurances of immortality, are 
Christ's clear and positive teachings. He 
knew. 



Chrises Resurrection and Immortality 

It is not the fashion today to cite Christ's 
resurrection in proof of immortality, since 
the resurrection itself must be proved. 
This, however, is too great a yielding to 
shallow modern skepticism. Paul said : " If 
Christ be not risen, your faith is vain; ye 
are yet in your sins" (i Cor. 15 : 17). 
He makes Christ the first-fruits of the resur- 
rection, and his resurrection the guaranty 
of ours, (i Cor. 15 : 23.) To the same 
purpose Christ said, " Because I live, ye 
shall live also" (John 14 : 19). 

This challenge, laid down to men's faith 
by Christ and Paul, should not be ignored 
in our thought of immortality. All argu- 
ments are in favor of Christ's resurrection, 
and there is not a single argument that will 
stand against it. 

" The resurrection is contrary to experi- 

[187] 



^be £00ential0 of Cbddttaniti? 

ence," men say. So also in its time were 
riding" by steam-power, lighting by electric- 
ity, flying in heavier-than-air machines, 
governments of, by, and for the people, and 
international leagues for the common good. 
So is every marked advance in world prog- 
ress. Indeed, progress means the appear- 
ances of things contrary to experience. 

Christ's resurrection is proved by ample 
testimony, by the sudden change in his dis- 
couraged disciples, by the spread of the 
gospel on the basis of the resurrection, and 
by the fact that the dynamic in Christianity 
for two thousand years is belief that Christ 
rose from the dead and is a living Christ. 
Without this faith the church today would 
lose its power; Christianity would lose its 
passion; and missionary endeavor would 
cease. Faith in Christ's resurrection is the 
very soul of Christianity. Those who with 
Paul believe that Christ was proved to be 
the Son of God by the resurrection from 
the dead, have done the spiritual work of 
the Christian centuries. 

Christ's resurrection is in perfect har- 
mony with his claims, his teachings, his 
power to renew men, his determination of 
the world's progress, and his present posi- 

[i88] 



fmmortalitij 

tion as the goal toward which the human 
race is moving. 

Men are moved by facts,- live, luminous 
facts ; and Christ alive from the dead is the 
most precious and powerful fact in the 
modern world to direct the social evolu- 
tionary process forward and upward. It is 
also, and by the same token, the best guar- 
anty of immortality. Whoever comes into 
vital relations with Christ becomes aware in 
himself of a life so filled with noble aspira- 
tion and endeavor that it is worthy to live 
forever, and will need to live forever to 
realize its possibilities. 

The Nature of Eternal Life 

Christ never argued the question of con- 
scious personal life hereafter. He took it 
for granted. As already stated, his favorite 
contrast on the subject was between life 
and death. This contrast is perhaps the 
most informing for us today, since we think 
in vital rather than pictorial terms. Some 
men live simply for the physical, and give 
no place in their lives to the spiritual, thus 
quenching their better impulses and leaving 
their moral faculties undeveloped. What 

[189] 



TTbe £00ential0 of Gbridtianitis 

satisfactions could there be for such persons 
in a spiritual world without physical bodies ? 
Physical appetites and passions, though 
psychically conditioned, must have flesh and 
blood through which to express themselves 
and find enjoyment. There can be no 
heaven for one whose spiritual faculties are 
atrophied. 

On the inside wall of the Campo Santo 
in Pisa, Italy, is a fresco of hell dating from 
about the fourteenth century. Around a 
table loaded with good things to eat, stand 
a group of pot-bellied men. They are raven- 
ously hungry, but they cannot eat, for they 
are in the spirit world and without physical 
bodies. On earth they were gluttons, and 
their greatest enjoyment, the satisfying of 
the physical appetite. Now appetite re- 
mains, but satisfaction is impossible. They 
are therefore in torment, for they have 
failed to develop spiritual faculties suited 
to life in a spiritual world. 

The fresco is certainly suggestive. In 
this world we witness in some the over- 
development of physical appetites and pas- 
sions, and the withering of spiritual facul- 
ties, until men are " dead in trespasses and 
in sins." In others we see spiritual facul- 

[ 190] 



irmmortaliti5 

ties gradually unfolding and making life 
beautiful and strong. Thus the laws of the 
soul corroborate Christ' s teachings, that 
man's eternal state is primarily one of spir- 
itual life or death. 

From the above it is evident that eternal 
punishment holds no element of vindictive- 
ness, but results inevitably from the laws of 
the soul. 

Christ describes the life of the righteous 
hereafter in terms of this world's best, for 
there is no other language in which to con- 
vey it. He pictures feasts for the hungry, 
mansions for the poor, thrones for op- 
pressed subjects, judgment-seats for the 
wronged, and life with Christ for those who 
love him. Such terms, of course, are the 
language of earthly experiences and desires. 
They give assurances in terms that we can 
understand of abounding life and blessed- 
ness. 

Our civilization is saturated with faith in 
and desire for eternal life. Religion is 
rooted in it; art glorifies it; literature 
radiates it; the graves of our dead bloom 
with hope of it; and the morals of the 
noblest of the race are aligned to its de- 
mands. No conviction that men hold con- 

[191] 



(Ibe Bddential0 of Cbtietianitis 

stitutes such a mighty force in the process 
of evolution as that of the immortality of 
the human soul. It gives worth to every 
individual, renders to righteousness its true 
and full significance, makes it worth while 
to battle for the highest character, lays upon 
every man the responsibility of helping 
others to worthful lives, fills with adequate 
significance the life and work of Christ, and 
binds us all to God and to each other in one 
spiritual family. It gives us a God that 
we can truly reverence and sincerely love; 
and it places us in a rational universe where 
human experiences are susceptible of worthy 
and purposeful interpretation. 



[ 192] 



Zhe Cburcb 



THE CHURCH 



BY the church is meant a company of 
Christians organized for the purpose 
of propagating the gospel. The propaga- 
tion, of course, may take different directions 
and have different phases of emphasis. 
Some groups of Christians, organized as 
churches, emphasize evangelism, others edu- 
cation, others social work, and some still 
other phases of religious, life and activity. 
The first Christian churches were com- 
posed of the disciples of our Lord and those 
who were added as the gospel was preached. 
The mother church was at Jerusalem, and 
for a time all smaller churches looked to 
her for more or less guidance. To the 
Jerusalem church Peter reported after se- 
curing converts in the household of Corne- 
lius. (Acts II.) To it Paul gave account 
of his work, bringing problems from 
churches which he had founded, and to it 
he carried a collection for the help of poor 
members. (Acts 15; i Cor. 16 : 1-8.) Paul 

[195] 



^be £00entia[d ot Cbcietianitis 

established churches at Antioch in Pisidia, 
Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Ephesus, Philippi, 
Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth, and possibly 
other places. 

As the centuries swept on, Rome, the 
dominant city of the Mediterranean world, 
became the chief church center, with pope, 
bishops, priests, and other functionaries, 
and with centralized control over practically 
all lesser churches. Under this regime the 
church became known as the Roman Catho- 
lic Church. This same type of organiza- 
tion has continued through all succeeding 
centuries 'and continues today for all Catho- 
lics. 

From the first tendencies toward central- 
ization, however, the Christians of the 
Eastern Mediterranean challenged the au- 
thority of Rome, and a second center of 
power was finally established at Constan- 
tinople, resulting at length in the separa- 
tion of eastern and western Catholics, the 
eastern branch being called Greek Catholics, 
and the western, Roman Catholics. 

From the sixteenth century onward the 
western Christian world has been charac- 
terized by numerous reformations and re- 
vivals, resulting in the separation of the 

[196] 



tXbe Cbutcb 

Lutheran and Episcopal Churches from the 
Roman Catholic Church, and subsequently 
in the separation, for various reasons, of 
other denominations, principally from the 
Lutheran and Episcopal Churches. 

The Church a Growing Institution 

From the above brief historic sketch it is 
evident that through all the centuries the 
church has grown. Everything alive 
grows — governments, schools, industries, 
churches. 

Christ repeatedly likened the kingdom of 
God to growing things — the mustard-seed; 
the wheat and tares growing together; the 
sower sowing on all kinds of soil, and reap- 
ing harvests accordingly; the earth bring- 
ing forth fruit of itself, first the blade, then 
the ear, then the full corn in the ear; the 
tree in need of fertilizing; and the vine 
in need of pruning. 

Churches, like all institutions organized 
and run by human beings, are imperfect. 
Even the disciples of our Lord were not 
all saints. Judas betrayed Christ; Peter 
denied him; Thomas doubted; and James 
and John were unduly ambitious. Imper- 

[197] 



Zbc B0dential0 of Cbridtianits 

fection is involved in the process of growth, 
whether of individual character, under- 
standing of Christ, or social organization. 

There are those who stand aloof from the 
church, insisting that it should get its doc- 
trines and forms of worship fixed. As well 
expect a growing boy to stay fixed physi- 
cally, mentally, and morally ; as well expect 
society in general to stay fixed in thought, 
ethical ideas, and moral achievements. 

Within every organization that grows 
there are elements of instability and con- 
flict; and if it be a human organization, 
there are also elements of unrest and dis- 
content. Churches are no exception. Only 
dead things stay fixed. 

If the church is what Christ expected 
it to be, it will never cease growing, but 
will improve its doctrines, better its forms 
of worship, refine its ethical standards, and 
enlarge its service. Growth is the inevitable 
result of ampler understanding of Christ's 
spirit and mission. 

There are those who, before joining a 
church, would have all " inconsistent Chris- 
tians " cast out. It is, of course, to be re- 
gretted that any church-member does not 
live in all respects an exemplary Christian 

[198] 



XS^bc Cburcb 

life; but on this point a number of things 
need to be said. 

1. Men who complain of inconsistent 
members in the church, often fellowship 
these same inconsistent persons in their 
lodges, and do so under solemn oaths of 
brotherhood. 

2. One's view-point should not be that of 
fear of personal contamination, but rather 
of desire for helpful relationships. Christ 
never considered how he could keep him- 
self clean, but rather how he could do 
others most good, set them a right example, 
exhibit before them a humble, helpful spirit, 
win them from their sins, and inspire them 
to heroic righteousness. 

3. Those who see the imperfections of the 
church are those who can best help the 
church to higher ground and enable it to 
render more effective service ; and they can 
help more by working constructively within 
than by criticizing destructively from with- 
out. 

4. Between old and young there is al- 
ways more or less of conflict, and ought to 
be. Age is conservative while youth is pro- 
gressive. In school work young professors 
urge the adoption of new methods while 

{ 199 ] 



Zbc lBeecntinl6 ot Cbridtianitis 

aged ones cling to old ways. On the farm 
the children want an automobile while father 
insists that horse and buggy are good 
enough. In business the young partner 
overhauls the plant and installs new machin- 
ery. So also in the church, the young never 
think quite like the aged. They differ some- 
what doctrinally; they also see new needs 
and insist on new methods. 

5. Young life is the hope of the church. 
Without it the church would soon perish, 
not only because the old die, but because 
without the young the church is incapable 
of adapting itself to present conditions and 
becoming effective in service. 

6. Every young Christian ought to join 
the church — some church — and give it the 
benefit of his vigorous young life in a con- 
structive way. This duty was never more 
imperative than now owing to our rapidly 
changing times. Religious institutions are 
the most conservative, and it is well that 
they are so ; but our times are moving with 
such extraordinary rapidity, and readjust- 
ments must be made so speedily, that young 
life in the church is indispensable. Christ's 
call today is preeminently to the young, for 
the hurrying century is in their hands. 

[ 200 ] 



^be Cburcb 

All Life Organizes, 

Like all other life, Christian life organ- 
izes. There is a difference between a plant 
and soil-elements, sunshine, and moisture ; 
between a crowd and a nation; between a 
mob and an army — the difference of organ- 
ization. Plant life organizes soil, sunshine, 
and moisture into plant structure; national 
life organizes millions of immigrants into 
orderly society; military life organizes a 
mob into an army. 

Our whole social and economic struc- 
ture is a system of interrelated organiza- 
tions — families, schools, fraternities, clubs, 
churches. Christian associations. Even 
boys' gangs have leaders and crude forms 
of organization. A really live Christian 
will either join a religious organization or 
form one. Failure to do one or the other is 
a practical denial of one's religion, for all 
life organizes. One with a purpose joins 
others of like purpose. One who takes 
Christ as Master joins others to do Christ's 
work. One with Christ's spirit seeks those 
of kindred spirit. 

For twenty centuries the church has done 
a great work, and it never faced more im- 

[201] 



Zbc JSdsentiald ot Gbrietianitis 

perative tasks than it does today. Why 
should any one stay out of the church, 
criticize, and shirk responsibility while 
others do the work? 



Church Union 

Some complain of so many churches and 
insist that there should be but one. For 
this reason they hold aloof from all 
churches. This attitude comes fundamen- 
tally from failure to understand the nature 
of historic organizations. 

Since differences between many churches 
are slight and relatively unimportant, it is 
apparent that they could not originate as 
separate denominations today. Each indi- 
vidual church is the perpetuation of a de- 
nomination organized hundreds of years 
ago, and for the best of reasons. Lutherans 
separated from Catholics in protest against 
ritualistic salvation and corruption in the 
mother Church. Congregationalists sepa- 
rated from Episcopalians in protest against 
the dominance of episcopacy and to as- 
sert the principles of democratic govern- 
ment. Methodism was a protest against 
the dearth of spirituality in the State 

[ 202 ] 



tXbe Cbutcb 

Church. Baptists insisted upon regenerate 
church-membership when the common be- 
Hef was that to be on the church-roll in- 
sured salvation. 

Likewise each denomination has taken its 
several way historically because at the time 
of its beginning there was needed some ef- 
fective protest against a wrong principle or 
insistence upon some neglected truth. What 
such separations, with consequent diversity 
of emphasis, insistence upon religious 
liberty, and embodiment of many-sided 
truth, has meant to the world will become 
evident to thoughtful men if they seek an- 
swers to the questions : How different is 
the world today from what it would have 
been if the Catholic Church had been able 
to compel everybody within its fold? And 
what is the difference between Catholic and 
Protestant countries — to name typical in- 
stances, between the United States and 
South America or Mexico, between Spain 
and England? 

In many instances the truth championed 
at first by one denomination has come to be 
championed by all denominations. For ex- 
ample, while historically Baptists have 
championed the separation of Church and 

[ 203 ] 



XLbc JCescntlals of Cbristianits 

State, all Protestant bodies now insist upon 
such separation. 

But if truths formerly championed by 
single denominations have now become the 
belief and heritage of all, why continue sepa- 
rate denominations? Thoughtful, earnest 
people are asking this question, and it de- 
serves a fair and full answer. There is 
room here for only a few considerations. 

I. Doubtless there are too many denom- 
inations; doubtless also a few denomina- 
tions are better than only one. Politics are 
best when there are two or three parties ; 
brotherhood is fostered most when there 
are many societies working in sympathy — 
Masons, Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen, 
and others; science and philosophy bring 
most light to the world when several schools 
are at work on different theories ; art of all 
kinds — painting, sculpture, music, litera- 
ture — is wonderfully helped by new schools 
of art appearing to criticize some weakness 
or emphasize something neglected in the 
old schools. Christian truth is fuller orbed 
today, and Christians are busier than other- 
wise they would be, because churches differ 
in convictions of truth and methods of 
work. Moreover, different churches exer- 

[ 204 ] 



XLbc Cburcb 

cise a selective process which is beneficial 
in securing membership. Some like formal 
worship, others do not ; some like evan- 
gelistic services, others abhor them; some 
are conservative, others aggressive; some 
are dogmatic, others liberal; some em- 
phasize doctrine, others social service. To 
crowd these divergent tastes, propensities, 
and convictions into one church and expect 
harmony and cooperation, is to ignore the 
human element and to overlook the fact that 
the principles of association in the church 
are the same as those in all other social 
groups. 

2. Denominations are drawing closer to- 
gether, and already some have organically 
united, for example, the Free Baptists with 
the Baptists. This drawing together is seen 
in the cooperation of local churches for civic 
betterment, in the dividing of missionary 
territory to prevent overlapping, in growing 
refusal to overchurch small towns, and in 
the thoroughgoing cooperation of all Prot- 
estant churches in the work of the Young 
Men's and Young Women's Qiristian As- 
sociations. 

3. Those who are overeager for church 
i;nion are apt to consider only their local 

[205] 



dbe BsaenttalB of Cbrlatianttis 

situations. They wonder what holds 
churches apart, seemingly unaware of the 
mighty sweep and power of world-wide 
denominations, of which local churches are 
but the smallest units of organization. 

One might almost say that denominations 
are in the way of the union of local churches. 
That is, not infrequently the churches of a 
town could and would unite but for the fact 
that each of them is a constituent part of a 
great denomination. Shall a church cast off 
the mother who bore her? Shall it forget 
its historic traditions and its heroic 
martyrs? Shall it renounce the fellowship 
in which it has been nurtured? Shall it 
bury its institutional love and pride? Shall 
it turn away from missionary enterprises at 
home and abroad, dedicated by the sacrifices 
often of fathers and mothers, relatives and 
friends, and always by the consecration of 
heroes of the cross whom through all the 
years it has been taught to admire and ap- 
plaud? If local churches could be pulled 
up by the roots, each out of its denomina- 
tion, union would be greatly simplified. 
But it is just this rootage which gives 
strength to denominations as well as to local 
churches. But for this rootage thousands 

[206] 



trbe Cbutcb 

of small churches would cease to exist where 
they are needed, and other thousands never 
would be planted where the need is greatest. 
But for this rootage also there could not be 
great denominations carrying on home mis- 
sion work and foreign mission work, plant- 
ing educational institutions and establishing 
publication houses, sending out evangelists 
and cooperating in Christian Association 
work, meanwhile collaborating together in 
nation-wide and world-wide movements for 
economic amelioration, social uplift, moral 
improvement, and spiritual renewal. De- 
nominational organizations reach every 
large city, have centers in every State in 
the Union, and literally encircle the globe. 
They have billions invested in institutions 
and equipment and scores of thousands of 
men trained and at work. 

What we have thus tried to bring into 
view has required hundreds of years to pro- 
duce. Every denomination has acquired 
historic momentum that cannot be suddenly 
stopped without great disaster and loss. 

As indicated above, many changes have 
already taken place which are uniting Chris- 
tians of all denominations in common belief, 
purpose, and endeavor. It would be a 

] 207 ] 



Zbc Baacntiald of Cbrt0tianiti2 

calamity for churches to unite any sooner 
than they can come together in fundamental 
convictions, for people without convictions 
are without power. Without conviction 
Christians will never win the world for 
Christ. 

The hope of churches coming closer to- 
gether lies in their cooperation in work. 
Those who plan, work, and sacrifice in 
mutual tasks draw together in sympathy, 
understanding, and point of view. There is 
abundant opportunity for churches in all of 
our towns to cooperate in Christian enter- 
prises for the good of the community. 
What are our churches doing for the boys 
and girls of the town? What are they do- 
ing to furnish wholesome and uplifting 
amusements? What are they doing to 
provide for clean and safe social life, 
not simply for their own young people, 
but in a civic way for those who do not 
come to church? What are they doing to 
organize and direct the play of the town? 
What are they doing in night-schools for 
those who cannot attend school by day? 
Should the churches not unite in providing 
and manning a community house, or some- 
thing akin to it? Should they not unite in 

[208] 



Zbe Cburcb 

an effort to Christianize their community in 
an outgoing way far beyond anything yet 
attempted, Christianize it, not simply by 
preaching and Sunday School, but through 
all the channels by which young people are 
reached, interested, and appealed to. Mod- 
ern community service is many-sided. It is 
too great a task for any one church. From 
its very nature it is a task for the coopera- 
tion of all churches. 

One is simply waiting for death who 
stands aside, complaining of too many 
churches and waiting for them to unite. 
One should join some church and work 
from within to get all the churches busy 
on some big, needed task. Cooperation in 
work will unite the hearts of the churches ; 
and when in a few score years or a few cen- 
turies they are found organically united, the 
organization will doubtless be different 
from any organization of the present day. 

Students and the Church 

It is common for a college student not 
to identify himself with the church in his 
home town because it is weak, and com- 
posed possibly of only a few aged people. 

o [ 209 ] 



tCbe ;600enttald of Cbtidttaniti2 

He plans that when he goes to college he 
will join one of the large churches where 
many young people are members. 

In his home town the younger boys look 
up to him as a sort of hero because he goes 
away to school. They notice that he " has 
no use for " the little church at home, and 
they follow the lead of their hero, who, sad 
to say, is failing in the very place where 
his influence is greatest. 

The one who thus neglects the church 
is lacking, not only in vision, but also in 
courage. He lacks vision because he fails 
to see that those, whoever they may be, 
who support the churches of a community, 
are the ones who care for the moral and 
spiritual life of the community, who are 
striving to make conditions safe for the 
young, who believe that the life and teach- 
ings of Christ are of vital significance for 
the world, and who are striving to give 
both the community and the world the bene- 
fit of them. He is lacking in courage be- 
cause he is unwilling to stand with the few 
in his home community who have the spir- 
itual and moral interests of the community 
at heart, because he is unwilling to put his 
Christian life into the church where it 

[210] 



(Tbe Cburcb 

would be a power to pull others toward 
Christ, because he refuses to give the church 
the benefit of his talents, his youthful vigor, 
his education, and his broadened experience, 
and because he is satisfied to bury his life 
in a large church where the need is not so 
great. 

I am not here writing of technical church- 
membership — of where one's church letter 
is held, or where one's name is recorded — 
but of the open and glad identification of 
one's life with the life of the church that 
is striving to do God's work in a community 
according to its best wisdom and power. 
Above all things, one should avoid being 
a snob in religion. 

Some hesitate to identify themselves with 
the church because they cannot consent to 
all its doctrines. Strange, indeed, must be 
one*s doctrines if, with so many denomina- 
tions, one cannot find a church which he can 
conscientiously join and support. 

It is the author's conviction that no Chris- 
tian church has ever appeared in history 
that did not have some message that the 
world needed. We are accustomed to say 
that we have too many churches, and it 
would seem so; but the important thing 

[211] 



tTbe Bssentials of Cbciettanltis 

is, not the reduction of the number of 
churches, but the possession of full-orbed 
truth. Most of our churches have become 
so tolerant of differing ideas within the 
church that no one has either to stay out 
of some existing church, or to form a new 
one, in order to be free to give ample ex- 
pression to his convictions. I doubt if a 
single evangelical church could be found to- 
day all of whose members see eye to eye 
in doctrine. I doubt, indeed, if one could 
bring together twenty-five ministers of any 
evangelical denomination, all of whom think 
alike with reference either to doctrine or 
practice. There is plenty of room in our 
churches for differing ideas. Doctrines di- 
vide; tasks unite. Today our churches are 
emphasizing tasks ; they are confronted with 
tremendous ones ; and they need the active 
cooperation of every person who owns 
Christ as Master. 



Tasks of the Church 

One of the chief tasks of the church to- 
day is that of readjustment to changing 
social conditions. The modern world has 
seen manufacturing leave the home for the 

[212] 



tibe Cbutcb 

factory. Great cities have sprung up like 
magic. Young people, leaving the farms 
and small towns, seek work in factories and 
offices. Rapid transportation and com- 
munication have massed population in great 
centers and divided them into classes. The 
few have become wealthy, while the many 
only earn a living. Multitudes, under the 
stress of overspeed during six days' work, 
claim the Sabbath for recreation. As our 
people have grown rich and wages have in- 
creased many have become lovers of plea- 
sure and fall into self-indulgence instead 
of bearing the yoke of responsibility. 

The church, consequently, must get out 
of the ruts of centuries and adjust itself to 
the changed structure of society or lose its 
power over men. This task of readjust- 
ment is the task of the young. It places 
every young Christian under special obliga- 
tions to be loyal to the church and busy in 
it ; and the clearest call is to the most gifted 
and the best trained. No others can ac- 
complish the task. Not to see the great 
need, is to be blind to present conditions. 
To stand apart from the church and criticize, 
is to be untrue to Christ as his cause pre- 
sents itself to our day. 

[213] 



tTbe JSasentiald of Cbrletianitis 

While it is well and necessary to recog- 
nize defects, one in thinking of the church 
should place the emphasis on appreciation 
of excellencies. When others look at us, 
we want them to see, not only the scar on 
our face, but the light in our eyes. We 
should see in the church unity of spirit 
amidst diversified individual interests ; the 
persistent purpose and endeavor to win 
men from sin and to make society better; 
the amount and excellence of self-sacrific- 
ing service — in teaching children, in preach- 
ing the gospel, in ministering to sick and 
needy, in caring for orphans, in establish- 
ing hospitals, in maintaining social centers, 
in mission work in all lands, in furnishing 
young men and women for Christian Asso- 
ciations the world around ; in its great work 
through members who are philanthropists, 
reformers, temperance workers, and uplift- 
ers of society in a multitude of ways. Such 
facts should press home upon every thought- 
ful person the question of whether he will 
continue to stand aloof from the church, 
criticizing and doing nothing to help, or 
'' get into the game," take his rightful re- 
sponsibility, and do with his strength the 
utmost of his share. 

[214] 



Zbc Cbuccb 

Our Obligations to the Church 

Every Christian young man has personal 
obligations to the church which are even 
more imperative than those already named : 

1. The church is his spiritual mother. 
He was converted by the work of the 
church — by the love, prayers, and efforts to 
win him to Christ, which the church made 
possible. His home was environed and per- 
vaded by church influences. His closest 
friends have had the good fortune of like 
church influences, and these friends have 
been powerful in his life. What he is in 
moral character and ethical ideas, he owes 
to the church. 

2. One's spiritual life must be developed 
by the church. No phase of life develops 
in isolation. Home love is developed by 
home life, class spirit by class activity, 
companionableness by companionships, lit- 
erary taste by literary friends, books, and 
societies. So also the church, with its mul- 
titude of activities, must be one's means 
of spiritual culture. 

3. Every one is needed in the work of 
the church. In all big undertakings men 
work, not alone, but in cooperation. The 

[215] 



Cbe Basentiale of Cbr(6tfanlti2 

Sunday School is carried on, not by one, 
but by a group. The church is supported, 
both financially and in all its assemblies, 
not by one, but by many. The influence of 
a church in a community goes forth from a 
group of persons who are united in sym- 
pathy, purpose, and endeavor. Social ser- 
vice is a task too large for one ; it requires 
united effort. Missions, both at home and 
abroad, is work needing an organization. 
In a sympathetic organization which under- 
takes great tasks there is not only room for, 
but great need of, ability of every kind, 
and in such an organization talents of every 
sort most readily find place and employ- 
ment. 

Team-work is needed in the church just 
as in the football game. The game is not 
won by standing on the side-lines and tell- 
ing how it ought to be done, but by getting 
into the game, adjusting one's movements 
to other players, and all pushing together 
to put the ball across the goal. Even those 
on the side-lines must cheer if their team is 
to win. Christ's work is a team-work 
proposition. The first thing the Master did 
was to gather about him twelve disciples. 
Let no one think to live his Christian life 

[216] 



Zbc Cburcb 

and do his Christian work apart from or- 
ganization. 

4. It may be safely said that no one to- 
day can make his greatest spiritual con- 
tribution to the world except through the 
church, or in closest sympathy and coopera- 
tion with it. One cannot do his best work 
except in sympathetic surroundings. Most 
of us have had experience of unsympathetic 
teachers who would not be pleased no mat- 
ter what we did. Good work under such 
teachers is impossible. In an unsympathetic 
company thoughts will not flow, humor is 
dried up, fellowship is stagnant. An un- 
sympathetic audience destroys a speaker's 
eloquence and stifles his resources. So also, 
only among those sympathetic with spirit- 
ual ideals and cooperating in spiritual proj- 
ects is any Christian put at his best; only 
thus is the most developed within him and 
the most got out of him for the help of his 
fellows. Even Christ wrought few miracles, 
and taught only in dark sayings, where 
sympathy was lacking. On several occa- 
sions it is said of him, in explanation of 
the people's failure to receive his best: 
" And he did not many mighty works there, 
because of their unbelief" (Matt. 13 : 58). 

[217] 



Zbc J660entiald ct CbtiBtianitis 

The Record of the Church 

No other institution in history has such 
a glorious record as the church. The hero- 
ism of Christ, a young man, sending forth 
a dozen young men to estabHsh the rule of 
God in the hearts of men, is an act of faith 
and heroism to captivate the imagination 
and command the admiration of every 
young man of spirit. 

In three hundred years the whole Medi- 
terranean world was made nominally Chris- 
tian. No difficulties, no oppositions, no per- 
secutions daunted the lovers of Christ. 
They were burned at the stake, thrown to 
lions, gored by angered bulls, cast into 
loathsome dungeons, thrust through with 
the sword; but they forgave their perse- 
cutors and counted it an honor to die for 
the Saviour whom they loved; while on 
every hand those who witnessed their im- 
hesitatlng response to the challenge of love, 
relinquished their idols and accepted Christ. 

We look back in amazement at the heroic 
folly, as we think, of the hermits and 
Crusaders. Their folly, of course, was in- 
cident to the ideas of their day, but their 
heroism in answering the call of God as 

[218] 



tTbe Cburcb 

they saw it will ever command the admira- 
tion of the world. 

We no longer believe that society is in- 
herently evil, and that it is necessary to go 
apart from it in order to be saved, as did 
the hermits ; but the self-sacrificing heroism 
that denied self-indulgence, crucified natu- 
ral desires, gave up friends and loved ones, 
and relinquished all worldly ambitions, 
stands out in glowing contrast with the 
easy-going indulgence of many in our time. 
A like heroism and sacrifice put into the 
tasks which constitute the challenge of our 
day to Christian men, instantly commands 
the admiration of every thoughtful person. 

We no longer believe that it is important 
to rescue the '' holy sepulcher " from " the 
infidel," as did the Crusaders; but when 
business and property are relinquished, as 
they were then, in order that one's self 
and one's money may be devoted to the 
cause of Christ as his cause presents itself 
in our day, the admiration of every one who 
seeks to uplift society is forthcoming. 

Beyond all other institutions, the church 
has been the dispenser of charity. Its 
methods, of course, have not always been 
wise, but this fact is of wholly secondary 

[219] 



^be JBedentiald ot Cbtiatlanit^ 

consequence. The heart to give, the dis- 
position to uphft, the recognition of obliga- 
tion, and the endeavor to promote brother- 
hood are the great things. Wise methods 
of administration are battered out of ex- 
perience. Our day is one of organized 
charity. In this work the church takes a 
leading part, both by giving money and by 
friendly visitation. All charity workers 
recognize that the poor need friends quite 
as much as they need material aid. 
Throughout the centuries the charity of the 
church has been a luminous manifestation 
of the spirit of Christ. 

The church has always championed the 
rights of the common man. In days when 
it was denied that women and slaves had 
souls, the church championed the dignity 
and worth of every individual. When 
slavery was common among all nations, the 
church insisted upon humane treatment, and 
commended those who liberated their slaves. 
Under the 'wage system the church has al- 
ways championed a " square deal." In 
every century it has stood, according to 
the best light of the day, for truth, right- 
eousness, and justice. It has refused to be 
discouraged, however great the discourage- 

[ 220 ] 



^be Cbutcb 

ments. In a little chapel in Wales, one Sab- 
bath morning, the writer listened to an 
aged minister preaching to a congregation 
of forty people on " The Conquering King- 
dom of Christ." The small congregation 
did not seem to represent large conquest, 
but the situation was typical of the unsub- 
duable spirit of the church through all the 
centuries. Between the dozen men which 
Christ sent forth and the millions in the 
church today there have been many ups 
and downs — dark days and bright days; 
days when the church fell into ruts which 
made reformation necessary; days when in 
places it was swept into the clutch of eco- 
nomic interest, as in our own Southland 
during slavery; days when the power and 
furor of the State turned it from its proper 
mission, as in Germany; but the spirit of 
Christ, ever latent in the hearts of at least 
a few, prevailed in the end, and the Church 
continues to be the source and fountain 
of the world's spiritual life and power. 

The Church at Present 

At the present hour the church is hold- 
ing up Jesus Christ to the world as the 

[221] 



^be }660cnt(al0 of Cbrigtianitij 

Saviour of men and the Redeemer of so- 
ciety; and it is the only institution that is 
doing so. It insists that men should be- 
come like Christ in character, and that the 
principles of Christ should dominate human 
relationships. It teaches and preaches 
righteousness. It stands squarely against 
all immorality, both in private and public 
life. It is the only institution which makes 
the salvation of men and the promotion of 
righteousness its sole business. However 
much individual members may fall short of 
its ideals and teachings, the church in its 
organized capacity, and in the united ef- 
forts of its members, exalts Jesus Christ 
and works to promote godliness. 

The church is the only organization that 
is working to give the knowledge of Christ 
to all peoples of the earth. Her missionaries 
are in every land. She has many arms and 
many busy hands — aid societies, charity or- 
ganizations, Sunday Schools, social centers, 
missionary societies, Young Men's and 
Young Women's Christian Associations, be- 
sides many others; while the great majority 
of all leaders in every field of reform are 
at the same time active members of the 
church of Christ. 

[ 222 ] 



ZTbe Cbutcb 

The Church and the World War 

Much has been said about changes that 
would come to the church after the world 
war, and some have intimated that the 
church failed during the world's great crisis. 

The Young Men's Christian Association, 
with other like organizations, and all army 
chaplains were the church of Christ at work 
to supply war needs. Churches also freely 
gave their pastors in order that they might 
serve where the need was greatest. Every 
church was a hive of industry, in its church 
building or elsewhere, helping to furnish 
what our soldier boys needed. No armies 
in the world were ever so well cared for 
morally and spiritually as the armies of 
the allied nations. Never in the history of 
war has such magnificent service been ren- 
dered, notwithstanding the suddenness of its 
demand and its staggering magnitude. 

Now that the war is over, what readjust- 
ments in church life are our soldiers de- 
manding? With gratitude we observe that 
they are returning to our churches thankful 
for the love and prayers that followed them 
into the jaws of death. Their letters to 
pastors and Y. M. C. A. workers express 

[ 223 ] 



Zhc B06cnt(al0 ot Cbciatianitis 

deep appreciation of spiritual help and com- 
fort. Thousands who began the Christian 
life in response to the gospel message in 
cantonments and on the war front, indicate 
Christ's power now as always to win and 
inspire strong men. 

There is as yet no insistent demand for 
change in the church by our returning sol- 
diers. Moreover, an institution that has 
been hundreds of years in building does not 
change either suddenly or rapidly. Its roots 
are too deep in the hearts of men; its 
threads of life are too intimately woven 
throughout the whole social fabric; it has 
accumulated too much wisdom from experi- 
ence. 

Yet changes will take place in the church, 
and they ought to come. The experiences 
of our Christian soldiers will accelerate 
changes that were already begun before 
they went to war. 

Some old methods of religious expression 
and church activity will wear themselves out 
and disappear. The Methodist class-meet- 
ing is already a thing of the past. The 
midweek prayer-meeting in many places 
does not serve the purpose it once did and 
is no longer supported as formerly. The 

[224] 



^be Cburcb 

preaching of Christ still attracts, holds, and 
interests more hearers, and does it oftener, 
than any other serious subject which brings 
men together in assembly. But there is fall- 
ing off in attendance at church, and the eve- 
ning service suffers most. In numerous 
places it has been discontinued. Evangel- 
istic services are not generally in favor as 
formerly. That is, the methods of church 
activity which originated in other days must 
evidently undergo readjustment to meet the 
changed conditions of our day. This we 
all feel. Our boys felt it before they went 
to war. 

New methods of church life and work 
will doubtless develop in line with present 
social emphasis, an emphasis which war 
conditions greatly accentuated. The key- 
note of the whole war situation was ser- 
vice. The demand upon Christianity was 
that it help some one, that it sacrifice, that 
it lay down life where needed. This is the 
social emphasis raised to the nth power. 
In the intensity of the situation it seemed 
to be the whole of religion. Men felt that 
all else of religious character must help men 
to gird themselves for sacrifice. 

This emphasis on self-sacrificing social 

p [ 225 ] 



Zbc B00cntial0 ot Cbcidtianfti? 

service our boys have brought back from 
the war. It is the emphasis of our cen- 
tury intensified by war conditions, and mag- 
nified and glorified because enshrined in 
the hearts of the most virile and forward- 
looking young men of the nation. 

Such men do not hastily turn from the 
church or lightly discard old forms with 
which they are familiar. But they will 
not remain satisfied with old forms and 
methods. New life takes on new forms and 
expresses itself in new ways. 

One may not say beforehand what the 
changes will be. Naturally the first at- 
tempts at improvement will follow the lines 
of Christian Association work, which was 
so helpful to the soldiers in the time of their 
need. But the new emphasis will deter- 
mine its own forms and methods as it pro- 
ceeds, battering them out of experiences of 
success and failure in the endeavor to bring 
Jesus Christ into vital relations with men. 

Whatever changes may come to the 
church, it must never be forgotten that the 
supreme need of the world is vital union 
with Jesus Christ. This is the condition of 
advancing civilization. No changes in the 
church will avail for the betterment of men 

[226] 



trbe Cbutcb 

which do not accentuate this fact, and no 
methods of Christian work and service will 
be an improvement on present ones unless 
they are more effective in bringing men 
face to face with Christ as Lord and 
Master. 

Wherein is our civilization ahead of that 
of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, ancient Greece, 
or Rome ? Where can you go in history to 
find grosser savagery than was exhibited 
in the world war, and in rebellions in Rus- 
sia and Germany since the war — the murder 
of non-combatants, the slaughter of chil- 
dren, the violation of women, the abuse, 
torture, and starvation of prisoners, the 
ruthless pillage, the wanton destruction of 
property, the bitterness and hate? 

We have boasted of progress in science 
and invention, and called it advancing civil- 
ization. The war has made apparent the 
fact that the only real advancement is prog- 
ress in manhood, that real civilization con- 
sists in building a finer type of the human 
species. All else may be but the perfecting 
of instruments of misery, destruction, and 
death. 

Science, we say, has decreased the burden 
of work in the world. But leisure is not 

[227] 



tTbe £00enttald of Cbrtstianitis 

an unmixed blessing unless those enjoy- 
ing it be of such character as to use it 
profitably; and work is a necessary condi- 
tion of physical and moral development. 
As great evils may come from too much 
leisure as from too crushing toil. 

Science and invention have given the 
world increased comforts and luxuries. But 
comforts and luxuries are often the cause 
of moral deterioration. Children reared in 
luxury are not better than children inured 
to toil. Those who grow rapidly rich are 
not made better thereby. 

Science has overcome many diseases. But 
modern industrial conditions and the inten- 
sity of modern life are responsible for many 
diseases. Heart-failure and nerve-fag are 
increasing. Trade diseases, caused by dust 
and poisons, are numerous, and industrial 
accidents cause no end of poverty, suffer- 
ing, and sorrow. 

Real progress consists in advancing man- 
hood, and scientific knowledge and methods 
are of advantage in proportion as we pro- 
duce men who make them a blessing. In 
a word, they are of advantage in propor- 
tion as men have the Christian view-point, 
spirit, and purpose. 

[228] 



tTbe Cburcb 

Never has it been so evident that the 
world needs Jesus Christ and that its prog- 
ress is hopeless without him. The only per- 
manent advancement that civilization is 
making is progress in Christlikeness. 

Whatever changes may come to the 
church, they will fail of advantage unless 
they reveal Christ to the apprehension of 
the people and persuade them to accept him 
as Saviour and Lord. 

It is well to promote athletics, to furnish 
amusements, to provide facilities for social 
life, to conduct night-schools, to open labor 
bureaus, and to promote many other social 
and economic ministries; but unless they 
are the media through which men catch 
Christ's spirit and discern his love, so that 
they are brought into vital relations with 
him, all our modern methods will be but 
futile playing at the world's great task. 
The world needs Christ. 



[229] 



Cooperatlna wltb (3o& 



COOPERATING WITH GOD 



MODERN democracies must be made 
up of spiritual men who are keyed 
to lofty purposes. Present conditions and 
future outlook challenge every serious- 
minded person to rise to the divinest that 
is in him. The times call for men with high 
ideals, with faith in God, and who are will- 
ing to work with God to make a better 
world. 

Constructive thought is demanded, and 
immediacy and vigor of action are impera- 
tive. It is not enough to criticize past and 
present institutions, even though criticism 
be just and needed. We must build better 
institutions, ever looking toward an ampler 
future in which there shall be less need to 
criticize. Criticism of one's self, of course, 
is a sign of growth. One lives to little 
purpose who is not wiser today than he 
was yesterday. Criticism of others also is 
beneficial when given with a desire to help, 
and especially when we have had experi- 



[233] 



^be J5d0entiald ot Cbri0tianiti2 

eiice of the things criticized; but criticism 
at best is a thankless task, and one of doubt- 
ful utility unless one also shows " a more 
excellent way." 

It is good to criticize the church, for the 
church, like all institutions run by human 
beings, can be improved. But the reasons 
for criticism ought to be to destroy the 
church if it makes men worse, or to im- 
prove the church and make it a more power- 
ful instrument for making men better. 

It is proper to criticize the Bible, but 
surely the criticism ought to be in the spirit 
of helpfulness. One could admire intel- 
ligent criticism of the Bible from one who 
sincerely thought that the Bible did harm, 
or from one who believed that he could im- 
prove the Bible as a religious guide, or from 
one who had found another book which 
would do the work better. But criticism 
without clear ideas, definite purpose, or 
generous motive, bespeaks thoughtlessness, 
and indifference to the spiritual needs of 
man. 

It is always necessary and proper to tear 
down an old building if it is really danger- 
ous, or if it serve no good purpose, or when 
a new and better structure is to be erected 

[234] 



Coopcratinfl vvitb 6o& 

in its place. But unless the new building 
is to be constructed, it is certainly best to 
let the old stand. It will shelter some from 
the cold and the dark even though it be old. 

II 

Suppose that one cannot connect him- 
self with any existing religious institution, 
or get at his religious life problem in any of 
the ways suggested in the foregoing chap- 
ters: 

1. One is dissatisfied with the church. 
Let him forget the church. Call it a man- 
made institution. It has always changed; 
it is changing rapidly at present; it will 
change more in the years ahead. Each of 
us would have his life to live, his possibil- 
ities to realize, and a worth-while work to 
do in the world if the church had never 
existed. 

2. One has trouble with the Bible. Very 
well. Forget the Bible if no help is found 
in it. Call it the record of God's deal- 
ings with men in other days, or what men 
thought was God's dealings with them. 
One has his life to live, his bit to do for 
the social good, and this would be the. case 
had the Bible never been written. 

[235] 



ttbe lS0dential0 of Cbristianiti^ 

3. One fails to understand Jesus Christ. 
Very well. Forget Christ if he furnishes 
no strength to moral purposes and no in- 
spiration for high endeavor. One still has 
his life to live, his burdens to bear, his sins 
to be forgiven, his temptations to overcome, 
his powers to use, his fellow men to help. 

4. One finds fault with people. They are 
human like one's self, and they are doubt- 
less more conscious of their faults and sins 
than anybody else. 

What then? Is life to be spent in quar- 
reling with.things and people ? in criticizing 
historic beliefs and customs? and in con- 
demning present institutions? Is one not 
to put in his oar and have part in the row- 
ing when the whole complicated process of 
making one's own and everybody's life 
more worth living is an up-stream task, re- 
quiring every willing hand at the oars? 

Ill 

It is possible, in the face of all difficulties, 
to secure an effective starting-point for 
one's religious life by beginning where one 
is and cooperating with God according to 
one's light and opportunity. You believe 
in God, though he may be vague to you. 

[236] 



Cooperating wttb (3o5 

You have a spiritual nature which feels a 
kinship to God and longs to know him bet- 
ter. Then cooperate with. God according" to 
your best judgment, and. grant the willing 
response of your spiritual nature as far as 
it is developed. This is reducing religion 
to its lowest terms ; but surely the simplest 
and most apparent fact to any man in 
earnest is that he ought to cooperate with 
God. He ought not to work against him 
or be indifferent to his desires. To coop- 
erate with God according to one's light is 
the least that a true-hearted man can do, 
and it is in fact the most that any man 
can do. 

To what tasks this cooperation will lead 
one, depends on many things — on the in- 
tensity of one's spiritual nature; on home, 
school, and social training; on moral stand- 
ards ; on social and economic ideas ; and on 
the needs and opportunities of one's present 
sphere of influence. But to cooperate with 
God according to one's honest convictions 
is the most apparent duty of every man. 
Less than this will not satisfy either one's 
intelligence or one's feelings, to say noth- 
ing of one's convictions of the highest life 
and the most helpful service. Cooperating 

[237] 



tTbe Baaentiald of Cbtietianitis 

with God according to present light will 
bring more light; it will lead to conscious 
fellowship with God in work; it will start 
one's spiritual nature into healthy and vigor- 
ous growth; and it will keep one busy with 
the things that are most worth while. 

IV 

The question now arises, What does God 
want? In what tasks may one cooperate 
with him? 

I. Surely God wants men to he pure in 
life. Here is an immediate task for every 
man, a task sufficiently definite, and one 
that is ever present. Its importance can- 
not be overemphasized. It affects individual 
life, family life, social life, and industrial 
life; it concerns the number of children 
born diseased, malformed, deaf, dumb, 
blind, feeble-minded, or with tendencies to 
epilepsy, insanity, or criminality; it affects 
the happiness or unhappiness of homes; it 
brings the bloom or blight to innumerable 
lives. Here is a task calling for the imme- 
diate activity and hardest fighting of every 
manly man. 

One's application to this great task takes 
very definite form. It begins with one's 

[ 238 ] 



Ccopecatittd wttb OoD 

self — the cleanness of one's own life, the 
purity of one's own heart, the chasteness of 
one's own thoughts. It has to do with the 
character of the pictures on one's walls, 
the nature of the stories one tells or hears. 
It challenges one's respect for manhood and 
womanhood, for motherhood and babyhood, 
for sisterhood and brotherhood, for life at 
its very source and in its holiest functions. 
Response to this sacred challenge consti- 
tutes the supreme test of many a man's 
honor and heroism. 

But the task of pure living is not simply 
one's own. Each of us helps or hinders 
others in their fight. During the war we 
prayed that our soldier boys might be kept 
pure amidst the temptations of camp life. 
The author had a number of personal 
friends in our training-camps. He prayed, 
not only that they might be kept pure, but 
that, reenforced as they were by good 
homes, good training, good associates, the 
confidence of friends, and the assistance of 
God, they might be towers of strength to 
others, and help to keep pure those less 
gifted and less fortunate than themselves. 

We help ourselves most by helping 
others — provided always that we do not 

[239] 



TTbe JS06entiald of Cbridtianitis 

help others for the purpose of helping our- 
selves. Jesus says : " He that loseth his life 
shall save it/' He gets warm quickest who 
helps to warm another; he fights best for 
himself who fights another's battles; he 
grows strong who helps the weak; he 
strengthens his own footing who holds an- 
other up. 

2. Surely God wants men to be honest — 
honest with themselves, with their fellows, 
and with him. A group of men who were 
producing a morality code for grade and 
high-school pupils, sent a questionnaire to 
a large number of teachers, asking what 
ought to be put into it. " Put honesty into 
the code," the great majority of them re- 
plied. Children are not far advanced in 
education before they are willing to take 
something for nothing. It is not a far cry 
from zmllingness to take something for 
nothing to striving to get something for 
nothing. The " gold-brick " element comes 
to pervade the whole of life. People want 
good health without paying the price ; they 
want cultured minds without being at cost ; 
they want spiritual life and eternal life with- 
out sacrifice and effort. The great need in 
work, trade, commerce, social relations, and 

[240] 



Cooperatina witb <3od 

spiritual life, is simply honesty — a sense of 
honor that is unwilling to take something 
for nothing. There is a deep sense in which 
a man cannot possess what he has not 
earned and paid for in terms of expendi- 
ture of life. Social health, economic sound- 
ness, and right individual character, cannot 
rest on deceit, fraud, or injustice. God 
wants honest men. 

But the task of securing honesty, both in 
ourselves and others, is so difficult, and 
must be so long continued, that no man is 
adequate, even to do his bit, without faith 
that God works with him. Conscious co- 
operation with God is imperative if one 
would work undismayed on a task so large. 

The first duty of a man who would help 
to make a more honest world is squarely to 
face his own soul and demand of himself 
absolute honesty with his God. This is- the 
only possible basis of cooperation with God 
in any task. 

3. Surely God wants brotherly men. Our 
world war was between autocracy and de- 
mocracy, between those who would rule and 
those who would share, between, nations 
schooled in hate and those schooled in 
brotherhood, between those who repudiated 

Q [ 241 ] 



XTbe £d0entiald of Cbtfettanitis 

national morality and those who advocated 
it, between those who disavowed Qiristian 
principles and those who stood by them, 
between those who would rule by brute 
force and those who championed the rights 
of the weak. 

The dividing-line seen in the war runs 
through all government, business, social, 
and individual life. Shall the powerful in 
government rule the people for their own 
profit or for the advantage of those ruled, 
as an older and abler brother might rule 
a younger brother? Shall the strong in 
business crush the weak or organize busi- 
ness for the benefit and comfort of all? 
Shall the more fortunate and gifted in so- 
ciety look down upon the less fortunate and 
less gifted, or value the weak as Christ 
valued them, holding all in a spirit of human 
fellowship, and furnishing to all the uplift 
and inspiration of brotherly love? Shall 
the individual go forth into life to get or to 
give ? Shall he make his work first and his 
pay incidental or his pay first and his work 
incidental? Shall what he is to his friends 
be first and what he gets from them second, 
or shall he place first what he gets and 
make what he gives contingent on that? 

[ 242 ] 



Cooperating wltb (5o5 

In a word, shall one's ambition and en- 
deavor be to bless or to be blessed? Shall 
one not give of himself, of the very best 
that is in him, remembering that *' there is 
that giveth and yet increaseth, and there is 
that witholdeth, but it tendeth only to pov- 
erty." Life grows rich by spending. 

To make the world " safe for democ- 
racy," and to make spiritualized democracy 
safe for the world, simply means to build 
men into brotherhood. It is a tremendous 
task; but surely it is God's will; and every 
earnest, forward-looking man ought to be 
busy with God working on the job. 

4, Surely God wants redeeming men. 
This means brotherhood raised to the high- 
est power. It means the strong bearing the 
burdens of the weak. As long as strength 
simply serves itself the weak will be 
crushed. As long as quick wits are selfish, 
slow wits will be outclassed and exploited. 
What is strength for? How is it to be 
used? Until strength is used to serve — 
to uplift the fallen, to sustain the weak, to 
rescue those in danger, to instruct the igno- 
rant, to guard the foolish from folly, and 
to save the sinning, we shall have a selfish, 
cruel, exploiting world; we shall never be 

[ 243 ] 



XTbe B00cntlal6 of CbrUtianitie 

out of hearing of the suffering and hungry ; 
we shall look upon the poorly clad, ill- 
housed, and diseased ; we shall be in com- 
pany with the sinning, hopeless, and despair- 
ing. God wants redeeming men, men who 
see needs and have hearts to help, men who 
are aware of suffering, folly, and sin in 
others, and who care. Is this not the mean- 
ing of the fact that " God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son " ? 
Is this not the spirit of Christ as he lived 
among men? Is this not the inner soul of 
religion and the highest and holiest task of 
every man? To serve one's fellows accord- 
ing to one's light and opportunity, to be at 
cost for others, to suffer and rejoice with 
them and for them, to bring to others the 
spiritual health of a life that believes and 
loves and cares and hopes and trusts, in 
order that they also may take courage and 
be braver and stronger — this is the one task 
supremely worthy of the enlistment of all 
the powers of a man; but it is a task so 
high, so difficult, and yet so needed, that he 
who undertakes it must be linked with God, 
and consciously cooperate with him. God 
always calls men to heroic tasks, but he 
always works with them. 

[244] 



Cooperating witfo (3od 



One's own heart is the measure of one's 
opportunity. The opportunity is as large 
or as small as the heart. A group of young 
people were gathered about a painting in- 
tended to represent a girl coming home 
from church. A church building was in the 
background of the picture, and in the fore- 
ground, the girl with her Bible walking 
toward the beholders. The young people 
were remarking that she had been to church, 
when a minister of the writer's acquain- 
tance, a man of keen artistic sense and of 
searching spiritual discernment, who was 
looking over the heads of the group, said: 
" She has not been to church ; she has been 
somewhere else." 

A well-known artist who related the in- 
cident to the author, said : " I made careful 
inquiry into the character of the artist who 
painted ' The Girl Coming Home from 
Church,' and learned to my surprise that he 
was an unmitigated villain. He could not 
paint a girl coming home from church. 
There was no church in his heart.'* Then 
continuing, the artist said, " I made up my 
mind when I began to paint that if I were 



[ 245 ] 



Zbe }&00entfald of Cbtiettanitis 

ever to become a painter, I must begin in 
the middle of my own heart." 

" As a man thinketh in his heart, so is 
he." " Out of the heart are the issues of 
life." No painter can put on canvas, and no 
man can put into life, what is not first in 
his own heart. Here is the place for each 
of us to begin — within our own hearts. Be- 
fore we can cooperate with God we must 
get right with God. We live in rushing 
times, when men are hard pressed with 
clamorous temptations. Men are needed 
who are right with God, and who, because 
right with God, are towers of strength and 
cities of refuge to those about them. Peo- 
ple are influenced, not by theories and the- 
ologies and philosophies, but by men. The 
right kind of men persuade and inspire 
others to do right. Every one stands in the 
center of a circle of opportunities influenc- 
ing lives on every hand. When we are 
right with God God works with us, our 
circle of opportunities enlarges, and our 
power and usefulness increase. The mea- 
sure of a man is his work. 

Speaking of the world war when the 
food conservation campaign was on, " The 
Continent " said : " We are all in it. For 

[246] 



Coopetatittd witb (3od 

each man the general duty sharpens down 
to a point which thrusts into his own Hfe. 
Nor can it be escaped by an easy sense of 
the corporate duty. Calculating the mini- 
mum which each person should accomplish, 
on the supposition that every other person 
will do that same minimum, is idle. Sav- 
ing such a fraction of an ounce of butter 
each week, or reducing by such a petty mea- 
sure the use of meat or wheat, is only an 
appeal to the latent selfishness of the na- 
tion. It really seems to signify that the 
war can be accomplished without any great 
sacrifice from anybody. But if the experi- 
ence of the other warring nations is a guide, 
that is a grave error. Nothing but cutting 
sacrifice will do what the world needs now. 
Nothing but a sharpened sense of individual 
responsibility will carry the nation safely 
through this crisis. There is no hope from 
men who are still seeking their slothful 
ease, resenting intrusion of calls for aid. 
Men who snarl when more money, or more 
time, or more labor is called for in this 
crisis are no help but a hindrance. . . 

" * In peaceful times,' said a soldier in 
General Pershing's army in France, * the 
soldier, like any other normal person, is 

[ 247 ] 



Zbc J£00ential0 of CbciBtianit^g 

jealous of his " rights." He will raise more 
disturbance over being called on for extra 
duty out of his turn than most any other 
person on earth. But I have noticed lately 
very little of that sort of thing. The atti- 
tude of most is to do as much as one can, 
to learn one's duties better than Jim Jones 
and Sam Smith, and then do those duties 
better still. It is all due to the fact that 
they are beginning to realize a sense of per- 
sonal responsibility in the struggles that are 
to come. The falling short of one may 
mean disaster to many! . . 

** A few men are actually interpreting this 
war in terms of personal advantage, only a 
few out of the total. But a multitude of 
men are still thinking of it as somebody 
else's affair. Since they are not called to 
the actual bearing of arms, they shake off 
all sense of duty. Meanwhile, there is a 
growing multitude who are seeking with 
deep earnestness to meet the crisis as a per- 
sonal one, making financial and personal 
sacrifices in its behalf, bearing it as a per- 
sonal burden, expecting to give account of 
their faithfulness to God." 

Surely the case could not be better stated 
for the religious life. The battle that is 

[248] 



Cooperatinfl witb (?o& 

on for righteousness is unspeakably more 
important than the world war. Indeed, 
the war was a part of the battle for right- 
eousness in human relations. Had the bat- 
tle for righteousness been adequately fought 
there would have been no war. Every man 
is needed in the fight. Slackers do not help 
win battles. Each one must be responsible 
for his bit. 



[249] 



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